


Phantoms

by bigfivedonaldduckfan



Category: Brave (2012), Disney - All Media Types, Frozen (2013)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Child Neglect, Drug Use, Elsida, F/F, Feels, Femslash, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Memory Loss, Merelsa, Merilsa, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2019-11-14 12:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18052319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigfivedonaldduckfan/pseuds/bigfivedonaldduckfan
Summary: In which Merida has destroyed her own life, and Elsa helps her pick up the pieces.The question is: why?





	1. Chapter 1: The familiar stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Very different kind of fic than the previous pirate fic. Told from Merida's perspective, this story will deal with some heavier themes. There will also be fluff, though, but be warned! You will probably experience.... feelings... if I do my job well.
> 
> Anyways, I'm happy I got this out before my week trip to Brussels. Hope y'all will enjoy this new story, because I sure am enjoying writing it so far!
> 
> (But let's not speak about the possible highly inaccurate depiction of amnesia, okay? That's not what we're here for. We're here to enjoy Merelsa goodness, okay?)
> 
> Have fun!

It was a regular autumn evening in October, rain pattering against my window like the great biblical flood would be taking place anytime soon, and there was a knock on my door.

I did not pay attention to it.

I retracted my hand from the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos positioned on my lap and brought the snacks to my mouth. They tasted bland, I thought to myself, like they always did these days. No matter how much I pained my mind, I couldn't recall a time in which food had tasted like heaven.

Another knock. I still wouldn't answer the door.

I stretched out on my couch, reached for the remote of the television, and reduced the volume. The reporter on the news droned on in his monotone voice, speaking of global warming, war, a car crash nearby or something equally terrible. I didn't know exactly what he was saying; all I knew was, I didn't want to hear it.

I cast a third glance at my front door, from which the knocking still resounded. Whoever was standing there would grow tired fast enough, their knuckles reddened and hurting from continously molesting the entrance to my humble apartment. The noise, annoying like a fly buzzing in your ear every second of the day, didn't cease.

Perhaps I would have answered the door quicker if I had but the faintest idea of who could be standing behind it. Thinking back now, if I knew who it would turn out to be, I would've bolted for the door in seconds, anxious to see the person behind it.

Instead, I took my time, letting my eyes roam around my apartment, deciding fast that this was not a place I fancied letting people into. I saw my collection of unwashed plates and cutlery displayed on the kitchen counter like the ruins of a once glorious castle, and a layer of dust on the floor, thick enough to tickle my bare feet if I stood up. And the scent… was not to write home about. I would try to urge myself to clean my home at least once a day, and after around five minutes, I would tell myself I'd do it 'later'.

'Later', I learnt soon, came to mean 'never' if you said it often enough. I felt my face heat up slightly, a blush appearing on my cheeks and heat creeping up my neck, as I sat on my couch, motionless, experiencing something akin to embarassment at the situation I'd gotten myself into.

And yet the knocking continued, and now it felt like an angry beast trying to make my eardrums burst.

It was time to get up and open the door, even if whoever was at the door would see my apartment and faint, were it for the smell or the mould surely gathering on plate number seven in my kitchen.

As I stood up from my couch and trudged through the dust, vowing to finally take to vacuum cleaning later (never, never, never), I called out 'I'm coming! Wait a second!' and continued to wonder whoever it could be at the door

It couldn't be a family member, for I hadn't had any contact with any of them for well over a year. My relationship with them, especially my mother, had been complicated, I'd been told, and after my incident, tension rose and I ceased all contact with them.

Not for the first time, I questioned if it had been a family member, perhaps my mother, who had led me to abuse Nepenthe in such a way.

Nepenthe. A drug, bittersweet on your tongue, but stinging in your brain like acid. There are many reasons to take a drug; the enhancement of your senses, the increase or decrease of focus, to calm down or to go wild. Nepenthe was never like that; Nepenthe made you forget. And when you overdose on it, you'll face the true meaning of amnesia.

I overdosed, two years ago. There were memories, or one terrible, terrible memory, that I couldn't bear to live with. Then I took more I could handle, wiped my mind blanker than unused paper and that was that. When I woke up in a hospital bed, to the smell of disinfectants and feeling like I could vomit my guts out if I tried hard enough, I remembered almost nothing but my name and age.

I would remember in time, the doctor, a friendly Asian man, told me. He'd sit down on the side of my bed, not close enough to feel threatening and he would tell me I'd be fine. He'd had more patients like me, he said, and they all regained their memories as time passed on. As they returned to their own lives, the tiny, insignificant events and people they knew would trigger their memories, cause them to recall who they were before, piece by piece. Hearing a loved one's voice, seeing a show on TV, smelling what was once their favourite food, could be enough to make someone recover a memory they once held close.

I did regain some memories, but I knew my parents were hiding something. I suppose they were afraid I'd try to forget again if I eventually remembered what caused me to take that much Nepenthe in the first place. There was something missing from my life, like someone had taken a vital organ from my body that I could only hope to retrieve someday. I tried to prompt my family to tell me why; why would I do it, why, this was hell, I was in unknowing agony in fucking hell, please tell me what was so important that I'd do this. But my parents, indifferent as always, refused to speak.

They were doing what was best for me, they said. I understood. I understood what was best for me. I moved out of their house, to a different city, and hoped I'd be able to make new memories to fill the void Nepenthe left in my heart.

And still, I was hooked on that lost past, consumed by trying to recover the forgotten. It prevented me from functioning, stopped me from communicating with others and be social like normal people, made me go out at night to walk from somewhere to nowhere in hopes of catching a glimpse of something or someone I used to know well. I was stuck in incomplete existence and knew well that I wouldn't shake that feeling of hopelessness unless I figured out why I'd decided to ruin my own mind and life once.

Then there was the knocking on my door. For mere seconds, I allowed myself to think my parents would be standing on the other side of it, that they would tell me they would discuss the issues of my memories with me over dinner. Deep down, I knew it could only be my landlady, though, for it was possible I was behind with my rent. A small jab of misery on a list long enough to fill a novel.

I opened my door and fell speechless.

"Hello, Merida."

I didn't know her. That was all I could think about. This girl, with her platinum blonde braid and blue eyes, skin paler than snow, was not someone I was familiar with. And yet, it felt like I'd known her for decades.

"Do we know eachother?" I asked, feeling the vague sensation of a nervous nausea pooling in my stomach.

The girl smiled, and somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, I thought I could recall laughter, distant and unreachable. But it was there.

"I don't blame you for not remembering me. I know what happened, but you see…. We were friends once."

I raised an eyebrow. "Friends?"

"Friends. Good friends."

I crossed my arms. "What's your name, then?"

"I'm Elsa. Elsa Arens."

Many questions formed in my head. A fraud, I thought, she's looking to take advantage of my situation. Some people are experts at sniffing out where to get money… though, to be honest, if she knew my name, she'd also know my as a supermarket cashier provided me with just enough money to be able to have dinner every night, nothing more. I wasn't a millionaire in a movie, there was nothing she could take away from me. And this girl knew my name.

I felt my nails digging into my sleeve. "If you want, you can come in for a second. It would be easier to talk that way."

'Elsa' nodded. "That sounds like an idea."

Her voice, I thought, had an edge to it as cold as the autumn breeze outside. There was warmth in it, sure, but it was hidden. I would have to do my best to bring it out.

I took a few steps back. "Don't mind the mess," I said, getting ready to close the door behind her.

I was sure she was aware of it. The smell, the dishes, the dust, all of it. She didn't look around when entering the living room, but I saw her eyes move everywhere, soaking up my mess. I settled on my couch, leaning against the armrest, and she sat opposite of me, far more elegant than I could ever hope to be.

"So."

"A start." Elsa eyed me with a stern look. "Do you believe me?"

"Partially."

"Partially?"

"Yes, partially. If you were a good friend of mine, why didn't you come see me at the hospital? You know what happened, you know the aftermath, and we're two years further now. It took you two years to come and talk to me. That doesn't sound like a very good friend. Does it to you?" I sounded aggressive, more than I wanted to. Every bit of pent-up anger that had been building up over the years came spilling out of me, like a sleeping volcano coming back eith another eruptiom. I didn't want to be this angry with her, but considering the circumstances, I knew I had a right to.

Elsa leaned forward with a remorseful look, shoving my abandoned bag of bland doritos away with one hand and resting her chin on the other. "I'm sorry. I should've contacted you sooner. I just… I had to leave. I would've been there for you if I had the chance."

"What could possibly be more important than a friend who needs your help?"

"It was urgent business."

I almost laughed at it. A cruel laugh. "Urgent business? Sounds to me like you were in prison or something."

"Prison?"

"Yeah, could be. What did you do? Theft? Murder? Fucking hell, you better not be a former friend-turned-killer who's showing up to get my help hiding from the police."

Elsa's eyes widened. "No, no, nothing like that. It's the other way around, actually."

"Did you just accuse me of murder?"

"I meant that I'm here to help you, Merida. You don't have to do anything for me."

Now I did laugh, slumping on the couch even more. "Help me? Now? Is this you arriving fashionably late? 'Cause this isn't a fancy fucking party, Arens. This is 'urgent business'." I mimicked her own words, prying for a reaction.

"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't be there. I'm sorry I had to leave, but I'm here now, am I not?"

"Yes, you're here to help me. Help me with what, exactly?"

"Have you looked around, Merida?" her voice grew icier with each syllable. "You're a wreck. You need to get your life back on track if you want to be alive when next year comes around. You're dead now. I mean, you're obviously alive, but you're not living."

"I'm not a zombie."

"But you're moving through life as one."

She was right and I didn't like it. For all my dreams of being reconnected with my past, this was too much. It overwhelmed me, as if someone had drenched me in enough chloroform to make me sleep a hundred years, only to wake up to a reality even colder than the old one. I made up my mind.

"You need to leave."

"Oh, if you want me to, I will." Elsa stood up, not in hurry. "But your parents… they won't tell you why you overdosed, right? The only way for you to find out is through them, right?"

"What?"

"I know what you tried to forget. I know why."

Upon hearing this, I shot off of the couch like a gun from a bullet. I stared into her eyes, currently as welcoming as the cold, brick walls of my apartment building, and made sure she could see the determination in my own. "Tell me, please. I have to know."

"I can't tell you. You need to recall it yourself."

"No, I don't have to. I don't need to know anything else about you, god, you seem like an awful friend after what little I learned about you today. I don't need to know anything but this."

"If I tell you," Elsa stated without losing her cool, "years of lost memories will crash down on you in a few seconds. That's not healthy. You might even suffer from brain damage after. So you see, I'm opposed to telling you."

"Tell me then," I continued, "the whole story. Who you are, who I am, who we were. Tell me about your urgent business you had to leave for. This friendship we used to have. I'll gather memories and eventually, you'll be able to… you'll be able to tell me why."

Elsa sighed. "It's a long story. It would take me days to tell you all of it, Merida. I can't reduce 13 years to an hour."

"13… years?"

"It seems like you underestimated the extent of our friendship. It's not a problem."

"So, what do you propose?"

She raised an eyebrow and it was terrifying. Somewhere, hidden in my mind, many more moments like this one were locked away. It baffled me.

"I'll help you get your life back together, in a way. We'll clean this mess. We'll go some places together, make some new memories while you recover the old ones, and eventually, you'll find out why you overdosed."

"Sounds simple, but effective."

"Any objections?"

I narrowed my eyes. I'd become too curious to have any serious objections. "I still feel like you went to prison or something equally bad."

"Believe what you want to believe. I'd tell you about my reasons for leaving, but I can assure you, that would cause your mind to collapse too."

Too many memories still gone to know the truth. I knew what I had to do.

"Fine. Help me get my life back on track, Arens. Help me figure out what happened to me, and I'll decide in the end if your reasons for abandoning me in the past were good enough."

A small, almost adorable smile appeared on my guest's face. "Thank you."

On that strange autumn evening, I took my first step to uncovering the truth I now know. It was and is a terrible truth, one I still want to forget sometimes. It is also, however, a truth that needs to be told, to be remembered, for both knowing and not knowing broke me down just the same. I will write it down, for all who wish to read the tale, and I will never forget again.


	2. Chapter 2: Helping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elsa tries to get Merida to try and clean het apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is here! I hope you'll enjoy!

I didn't expect her to return.

When I hit snooze on my alarm clock the morning after our first meeting, which didn't turn out to be a first time after all, I sighed, rolled over and opened my eyes, just to close them again a few seconds later. Elsa had said she'd stop by at 11 in the morning, but I couldn't help placing question marks around the statement. A part of me told me I was dreaming, that this Elsa, this friend, hadn't been real from the start. It all came out of nowhere, Elsa came out of nowhere, and I had every right to question the situation I found myself in and my apparent 'friend'.

My mind was starting to deceive me. Elsa Arens didn't exist. She was a manifestation of my insecurities, my insatiable desire for answers and meaningful contact.

I ended up getting out of bed anyway, not for the familiar stranger, but for myself. I was hungry. I slipped into comfortable clothes and found my way to the kitchen, careful not to stub my toes on any knick-knacks lying around the house uselessly. Like me.

It was then that the sound of cereal clattering into my bowl was interrupted by knocking on my door. My eyes widened. I recognized that knocking; it followed a certain pattern that I'd heard before. Yesterday, in fact. I'd subconsciously memorized the noise already, or, and that was what I'd preferred to think, even if it meant my sanity was slipping, I'd conjured up the sound along with the manifestation of my fears and what was left of my hopes and dreams.

I considered not answering the door once again, but it quickly became evident it wouldn't work. "Merida! I know you're in there somewhere!"

I left my cereal for what it was, promising to return to it soon, and went for the door. I shivered as my hand came in contact with the cold doorknob and it only got worse when I opened the door, letting cold wind into my house. At least it woke me up well.

"And good morning to you," the same voice I'd heard the day before said to me, and I found myself staring into Elsa Arens' eyes.

"You actually came?"

"Sure looks like it." She gave me something resembling a smile, though not a happy one. "Can I enter this garbage dump you call home now? Or would that be going too far?"

"I'm stuck with you anyway," I said, stepping aside so she could come in. "Though I hope you don't mind me eating breakfast. You interrupted."

"Apologies."

I closed the door, pushed past her and found myself seated at the table, pouring milk into my cereal. Elsa sat opposite of me, scanning her surroundings once more, thinking.

"So what's the big idea for today?" I asked, startling her out of her thoughts. She'd looked strangely vulnerable, disturbed like this, but she regained her usual, rather icy facade without much trouble.

"You're going to clean this place up. I mean, really clean this place up. It smells like my grandmother's dusty cellar here, let's be honest. How do you live like this?"

I munched on my cereal, swallowed my bite. "We just met yesterday. Before that too, I guess, so don't start, but to me, we met yesterday. I'm not going to let you Marie Kondo the shit out of my apartment."

"Your entire apartment doesn't spark joy, Merida, that's not my fault."

"You don't spark joy either, and yet you're still here bitching about it."

"Mer, you can't live like this."

I slammed my hand down on the table, the bowl of cereal jingling softly. "You want to help me, Elsa? You want to help me? You're not helping. You'd help me more if you left."

"I don't think so."

"Well, I do. What's the fucking point in cleaning? It'll end up being a mess either way."

Elsa stood up with a fire in her eyes. It almost made me regret my words. "You want to see what point is? Fine, I'll tell you what the point is," she said, somehow remaining calm and collected, more than I could ever hope to be.

I motioned for her to continue with my eyes, another cereal-filled spoon making its way towards my mouth.

"The point is, you don't like this mess. I can see it in your eyes. You hate it, you're ashamed of it, but you don't do anything about it, even if it hurts you not to. Because you think it doesn't matter if you clean it; it'll be for nothing anyway."

"Go on."

"But here's the thing: You're right. There's no point in cleaning. There will be a mess either way. But you'd hate yourself a little less if you cleaned up more, and that's worth something, believe me."

"You're saying," I repeated, making sure I understood right, "that cleaning will make me happier?"

"That's what I'm saying, basically."

I knew she was right. The fire in her eyes died down and I knew it was the same for me. She was right, I thought, and I had the feeling that was something I'd have to get used to.

"I'm not saying you need to clean because I want to bother you. I'm saying it to help."

I ate the last of my breakfast in silence, got up, brought the empty bowl to the kitchen counter, refusing to look my guest in the eye. Right. So right. I hated it, didn't want to admit it, but Elsa Arens had succeeded in giving me a point.

I hoisted myself up to sit on the counter between mountains of unwashed dishes and faced Elsa. "Will you help me clean?" I asked in a small voice, admitting my defeat.

Elsa flashed me a smile, a real smile, perfect white teeth bared without any malice. I liked that smile. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"Do you know Disney's Pinocchio? The story?"

"The story that has literally nothing to do with this situation as a whole? Yeah, know it."

"Jiminy Cricket acts as Pinocchio's conscience. He doesn't do much besides telling Pinocchio what he should and shouldn't do, you see, 'cause it's Pinocchio who needs to get his shit together. The cricket can't do that for him. I am, in a way, your conscience, like Jiminy Cricket to Pinocchio."

"Did your nerd ass just compare yourself to a cricket?"

"And you to a marionet, if you want to think about it."

I shook my head, amused. "You like stories, don't you?"

"I do."

At that moment, I felt something resurfacing in my brain. Something buried away long ago, hidden in a long forgotten past. I could hear the memory resonating in my mind, trapped. All I had to do was reach out and grasp it.

I glanced at Elsa. "You're not so bad. You might spark some joy after all."

Elsa clicked her tongue, turning around to sit backwards in her chair, facing me as she casually leaned on the piece of furniture with an amused face. "I'm honoured you're not getting rid of me so soon."

I rolled my eyes and went to seek a vacuum cleaner, picking up empty packages on the way. I would clean and hope it helped me, hope it provided enough of a distraction for me to focus on the memory I'd almost recovered.

~~~~~~~~

I remembered now, and the memory was old. Fifteen years old, to be precise. I must've been five around that time. It was the first time I met Elsa Arens; truly met her.

It was my own comment about stories that triggered it, combined with Elsa's presence. I remembered bits and pieces of my kindergarten class. There were the kids of course, which included me, and Elsa, and so many others. We had a friendly, young teacher who loved to tell us stories. Perhaps she told us about Pinocchio. Perhaps that's why Elsa had mentioned it.

Either way, there was Elsa, the quiet, immaculate kid who'd probably blend in right with the third graders when it came to intelligence, except she was as tiny and unimportant as the rest of it. She was smart; it didn't get her many friends.

Then again, I had few friends too. Only casual contact with other children.

I suppose I scared them, the other kids. Home wasn't fun. My mother had given birth to triplets not long before. There wasn't much love and attention left for me. I didn't like to admit it, but I was becoming something of a problem child. Not someone you'd see getting along with a quiet, nerdy kid whose level of perfection bordered on the downright ridiculous.

Except there was this boy in our class. I remembered his name vaguely; Hans Westersomething. He was a brat in the ugliest sense of the word, one of those guys who still managed to have a lot of friends and followers despite being nothing but a jerk. He wore cologne (stolen from one of his brothers, most likely), pretending to be sophisticated, while in reality, he would sit at his sad little desk like the rest of us and he'd pick his nose, eating the contents. Sophisticated. I hated him with every fiber of my being.

Coincidentally, so did Elsa Arens.

We spoke sometimes, casual conversations, and then Hans came up. When I spoke about my latest annoyance regarding that guy, perhaps how he'd been throwing clay at the windows, I prayed Elsa wouldn't turn out to be among his followers after all. This, much to relief, turned out to be untrue.

And just like that, we had something in common. Not long after, I also discovered we both loved our teacher's stories.

"If kindergarten was a story," Elsa said one day, "Hans would be the villain. I'm sure of it."

"Hans as the bad guy sounds about right," I'd agreed, "but we need a hero too."

"We do. You?"

I shook my head. I couldn't consider myself the hero of the story. No, I had too much of a temper for that. Heroes are calmer, more noble, more perfect. More Elsa.

"I was thinking about you, actually."

"Me?"

Elsa never could see herself as the hero either. She wasn't one in the traditional sense. She wasn't strong and her voice wasn't loud enough and she wore these dorky glasses that made her too adorable to be considered as badass as a hero. But she was one, to my five-year-old brain. There wasn't anyone else smart enough and willing to take the time to be with me, help me with school work, talk to me about the most trivial and at the same time uncommon things.

"Yeah, you."

"It wouldn't be fair to you."

"Fine. We're both the hero then," I said, "can we go and get lunch now?"

Elsa smiled at that. "We're both the hero. Time for lunch," she said, and we'd changed the subject with the speed only young children possess. We didn't know then that the story we were writing together, the story we starred in and lived in, was bound to be a tragedy. Who knew at that point that our story would end up so awful, filled with 'what if' and 'why' and forgotten memories, dissolving into the dust I was currently trying to clean up?

But a tragedy, while sad and painful, is a beautiful story nonetheless, and deserves to be remembered.


	3. Chapter 3: Drizzle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sky is grey and it's drizzling outside. A perfect day to go to the beach, right? There's nothing that could possibly go wrong... right?

In time, my house became cleaner, and the same happened with my mind. It was like a goddamn fucking miracle. Along with the whirring of a vacuum cleaner buzzing in my ears, my brain filled up with many memories. Some small and insignificant, or actually, mostly small and insignificant, but there was a certain magic to being able to seen what I'd once seen again after years of not knowing and not being able to replay scenes long gone in my mind.

I even started to like Elsa, though I didn't really want to at first.

It was strange. The part of me that had opened the door that evening knew there was something off about her; Elsa Arens who'd been my closest friend but failed to show up when I needed her to, who had secret urgent business that had caused her to disappear. But the part of me that resurfaced with my memories, a phantom of my past which repossessed me and slowly but surely caused the old me to return, began to like her despite her ill actions.

I liked how she looked at me with glittering eyes when my apartment's state of existence improved in time. How she'd tried and failed to hide laughter when I tried and failed to make pancakes. How she was there for me, a comforting presence despite what had happened, someone I could count on who had no ulterior motives. Or at least, it looked like that to me.

It was Elsa who had the good ideas, as I'd expected. She had to have them; she knew everything I didn't know. If anyone could tell me a story I'd forgotten through careful actions, it was Elsa Arens, and it always seemed to me that she knew exactly where to go to make me remember.

But when we arrived at the beach on a gloomy afternoon in the middle of November, I wondered if she'd lost her mind a little.

"In case you haven't noticed, the summer season's over. And it's raining."

Elsa sighed. "You can't call that rain. It's barely even drizzle."

"Drizzle?"

"Drizzle."

I stepped out of my car, stared up at the grey sky and blinked as a few tiny drops of water hit my face. "Drizzle."

It was like my good mood had been crushed in an instant, like a character in an old cartoon might get crushed under a safe. I could already smell the salty water and it made my head pound, as if that same safe had crushed me too. But I would step out unharmed. Cartoons worked like that too.

"Oh, come on, get rid of the long face," Elsa, who'd gotten out of the car at this point, told me. "It's not like rain stopped you years ago. In fact, you're disappointed it's too cold for ice cream and that's all, I'm sure of it."

I facepalmed. "Don't project your own issues on me, Arens. And I don't mind rain, as long as I'm not standing in it."

"Drizzle."

"Fuck you and your drizzle," I said, but I made towards the beach anyway, the sound of my footsteps disappearing as I reached a sand path. A few cliffs loomed in the distance and walking up to those seemed as good an idea as any.

"How do you even know this will bring back memories?" I asked, the scent of the sea growing stronger with every step I took.

Elsa shrugged. "I guess. Correctly. Don't forget, I know you very well."

"Hm."

"And my memory is better than yours, I'd say."

I kicked some wet sand in her direction, for fun. "Some people ask for a mouth full of sand, don't you think?"

Elsa laughed, wiping sand off of her pant leg. "Guess I'll have to run then, if I don't want to experience that."

"Then run."

"No." There was determination in that single word. "I have some faith in the sea."

It was my turn to laugh, and also to raise an eyebrow in disbelief. "The sea?"

"Yeah. I hope its waves will hit you in the face if you come too close to me."

I imagined being assaulted by the wet, salty water, and decided I'd rather drink a cup of coffee than a bit of sea.

"Would be awfully cold, I think."

Elsa pulled a face, as if that was the strangest thing she'd heard all day. "It can't be that cold."

"It's literally November."

Elsa rolled her eyes and walked past me, towards the water.

"What are you doing?"

"Making a point." She stepped out into the briny waves, not caring about soaking her shoes, and with a triumphant look, she faced me. "Cold, you were saying?"

"How are you even still alive?"

Elsa forced a smile. "Cold hasn't bothered me in a long time."

"And yet you need to force that smile. You are cold."

"Oh, please."

"Now get out of there." I took a step closer to the water to the sea, to her, myself.

"I said I'm okay."

Waves rolled onto the beach with little force, pounding in my head. I'd always thought of the sea as calming, but I didn't feel that way as Elsa stood there. I didn't even notice when the water flung foam at me, which got stuck in my hair.

"I said get out of there. Please."

Elsa looked worried, as if she'd seen me take a shady drug and was now hoping the effects wouldn't cause consequences. "You sound irritated, almost scared. You know it's just water, yeah?"

It was just water, but it wasn't right. I felt a thousand feelings I couldn't comprehend and thought a thousand unintelligible thoughts and it exhausted me, and Elsa had to get out of the fucking water. I took another step and found myself standing in the sea too, the sound of crashing waves ringing in my ears.

"What-"

"Out, now." I gazed into Elsa's eyes, drank in the confusion, and pulled her out by her sleeve, with so much force we fell on the beach, right in the wet sand among seashells and seaweed.

I spit out a bit of sand after the fall and sat up. Elsa remained lying in the sand, but I could see she was conscious.

"What happened to you?" My friend finally asked, voice small and laced with concern.

I stared out over the water and couldn't look her in the eye. "I don't- I don't know…"

Elsa sat up too, wiping sand from her face. "You seemed scared of something."

"Maybe."

"What were you so afraid of?"

I remained silent, thinking long and hard about that question. I couldn't explain it; I barely realized what came over me myself. My fingernails dug into the wet sand and I tried to make sense of all those peculiar thoughts and feelings that had exhausted me so much.

Elsa didn't make a sound, giving me the time I needed. I was glad she was there, glad she was okay. 

"I think I was afraid to lose you."

I examined my fingernails and removed the sand that had gotten stuck under them. Anything but looking Elsa Arens in the eye.

"Lose me?"

"I don't even know why I thought that. I don't understand. I don't understand a single thing."

I finally found the courage to make eye contact and wondered why I thought of that as hard in the first place.

"But I felt terrible and you had to get out of the water. I suppose I just… panicked."

Elsa fidgeted with her sleeve, the ghost of a smile on her face. "It's flattering you don't want to lose me."

"I'd say so too."

"But I don't see why you'd think you'd lose me. It's just water and I don't plan on leaving soon."

I didn't know what to reply, so I said nothing.

"If you're subconsciously afraid I'll… abandon… you again… I'm sorry."

I closed my eyes for a spell, still feeling worn out. "That's not it, I suppose. I could be wrong, but I guess it… doesn't make sense. Not everything does."

'Except it did', said a voice in my head, and I wasn't entirely sure if it was feeding me lies or truths. My exhaustion made room for a mild anger as I managed to jump to a logical conclusion.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you? You knew from the start."

"I- what?"

"You've known everything up until now. Where to take me and what to do with me to bring back memories, and up until now, you've always been right. I can tell from your reactions. I react to every situation in the exact way you think I will; the right memory resurfaces every single time."

"Well, that's just dumb luck on my part."

I grabbed her shoulders and brought my face closer to hers. Close enough to kiss her, if I'd felt like it. "There hasn't been fucking memory, Elsa. Not one. Just this godawful, gnawing feeling. You can't tell me you didn't expect me to react this way, because you've always been right."

Elsa's gaze turned colder with a blink of my eyes, but not the biting cold I'd seen before. More of a defeated cold, the cold of someone who tried her hand at warmth and ended up realizing that that wasn't how life worked.

"I'm not God. I'm not as perfect at everything as you might think I am," she said, removing my hands carefully, not a single uncalculated movement to be spotted.

"I know you're not."

"No, you don't. You think I'm always right. But I'm not. I'm right many times, that's true, because I'm not an idiot. But it doesn't mean I can't be wrong."

"That… makes sense."

"It does. Believe me when I say I didn't expect you to react like this. I didn't want to hurt you or tire you or anything. I knew this would happen as little as you did."

I laughed and the sound echoed on the empty beach. The drizzle intensified. I turned to look at Elsa, a smile on my face. "Would you look at that? Even when you're wrong, you're right."

It's not hard to find flaws in perfection, but finding perfection in flaws is a feat in itself. Elsa got up, dusted herself off.

"We should get back to the car. The drizzle's starting to turn into rain."

I stood up and we made our way back to my car, leaving the ocean's crashing waves behind us.

"The French Riviera," Elsa said as she opened the car's door. "I don't know if that means anything to you, but it might trigger the memory I was trying to find."

And it did. I could only nod at that as I closed the door after getting in the car, blocking out the smell of salt, and my reply came at least five minutes later, because I'd been too occupied with my thoughts to come up with one.

~~~~~

We always hung out at the beach. Especially in the colder months, when there were fewer people about. No children screaming for ice cream, no sand kicked up in your face by enthusiastic teenagers playing beach volley, and no radios blasting at full volume. It was perfect that way.

The beach in our hometown didn't amount to much. In fact, it was downright terrible. Humans littered and the cleaning service couldn't be bothered until summer started and the masses returned to the sea. The water was murky and polluted and the air reeked of smog and dead fish. I always doubted if the water was safe for swimming, because the beach always smelled vaguely of the town's sewage system, but kids ran around in it every summer, and none of them had ever died after ending up with a gallon of sea water in their stomach. It was decent.

It really wasn't a place you'd come for fun and that's why we went there. No one else would show up. If you didn't want to be disturbed, the beach was where you had to go.

Its location was also a factor. Elsa and I lived on the opposite sides of town, but we saw each other a lot, and the beach lay somewhere between our houses. My parents didn't care much for where I went after school. My mom had her hands full with the triplets, and my father, a war veteran, had many things on his mind, but not his family, or the present in general. I could show up home at 12 o' clock and no one would notice.

And Elsa's parents…

The Arens family was rich. Not the 'we go to Disneyland every week' rich, no. More of the 'we work our asses of for money, but it means we need to sacrifice family life' rich. 

There was never anything like financial trouble in the Arens household; Elsa and her sister Anna had everything they could ever want. Except they didn't have parents at home, because they worked days and sometimes nights, and if they were home, they'd be asleep and the chance of actually having a meaningful conversation with their daughters would be slim. A shame, to be honest; you can have everything you wish for and still miss what you need the most.

Anna came with us to the beach many times, but sometimes she had a playdate with a friend, and Elsa wouldn't feel obliged to take her along, so we had time to spend with no one but us two. With no offense to Anna, I enjoyed those times the most.

"Not really the French Riviera, isn't it?" I'd joked once, after listening to Elsa complain about the state of pollution on the beach. She did that often, complaining, but not in an annoying way. More in an 'this annoys you too, so let's complain about it together' kind of way. It made her difficult to understand; I never quite knew if it made her happy or sad.

"The French Riviera would be one hell of an improvement, compared to this. Look at it; I'm surprised the fish haven't spontaneously evolved and crawled on land before our eyes to escape from that water."

"Bold of you to assume a fish can live in that water."

We laughed, forgetting the stench of sewage for a few seconds. "Not the French Riviera, indeed," Elsa said eventually, before continuing with, "we should go there sometime."

"To France?" The thought of that made me happy. It would be nice to try some weird French delicacies or to walk on a clean beach. I'd give up the quiet you could find here for that in a second.

"I mean, yeah. Why not? My parents have money. We can go on a vacation when we're old enough."

I could see a twinkle in her eyes and I knew it would be the same for me. "That's settled, then. After our high school graduation, we're off to France.

We'd planned a bit of an imaginary trip in advance after that, talked about hanging out on a beach that didn't remind you of a town's sewer system. It would be fun to try escargots, I'd said, and Elsa answered, okay, let's not go that far, and we laughed and everything was okay.

It was a nice memory, and I could see why Elsa had wanted me to remember, in a way. On the ride home, I wondered if we'd ever actually been to France, but I didn't think so.

We graduated at 18, if I remember correctly, and I lost my memories at 18. Elsa had her urgent business at 18. A trip to France couldn't fit in there if we tried.

Perhaps we could still go one day, I thought back then. To this day, I still think that would've been fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't have much to say, really. France is neat. Still enjoying the story so far? I hope you are. See ya!


	4. Chapter 4: Please, stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their trip to the beach, Merida doesn't want to be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I made you guys wait (again). I hope I delivered some nice fluff, though.

The trip to the beach left me confused and tired, almost unable to speak. Whenever Elsa would ask me a question on the way home, which wasn't often, I could only hope to find the right words to say to her, and the few words I was left with weren't enough. 'Yes'. 'No'. 'I don't know'. 'Thanks'. Those were the words my vocabulary contained; they didn't quite reflect the complexity of all the different emotions I felt.

I'd have given my life for a cup of coffee, or something like it, at that moment. I'd almost pulled over at a McDrive to ask for a drink, anything, as long as the taste would distract me, but the realisation of having left my money at home stopped me.

While I pondered on this dilemma, Elsa seemed to have lost all concerns she might've had. Slumped against the window with her eyes closed; I would've believed she'd actually fallen asleep, if it weren't for those eyes opening every few minutes to glare daggers at drivers who seemed to have received their licenses for nothing. But as long as every car stuck to the rules of the road, she didn't stir, looking rather peaceful. It allowed me to believe that nothing ever happened to me, to us, that everything was okay for a while. That I was okay for a while.

I could ask her, of course. Elsa Arens never seemed troubled about anything, though the opposite was most likely true. I wondered how she did it. How could someone be so graceful and indifferent about whatever bullshit life decided to serve?

I tried to focus on the road again, instead of focusing on my awful thoughts and feelings. I needed to get my thoughts as straight as I could get them, clear up the fog clouding my mind. I knew I'd crash and burn if I didn't. I stared at the road, longed for coffee, snuck an occasional glance at my friend's 'sleeping' face like some lost fool. Life just didn't get any better than that.

When I finally managed to park my car in the parking lot at my apartment building, I still had not been able to get rid of that uneasy feeling I'd had ever since Elsa stepped out into the sea. I sighed and clutched the steering wheel tightly, after shutting the car's engines down.

Elsa opened her eyes, her peace disturbed by the sudden disappearance of the engine's soft rumbling. "It's a miracle we made it back here," she stated, sounding tired as she stared blankly at the car parked in front of us.

I fumbled around with the words in my mind for a bit, trying to grasp enough to form a coherent sentence.

"Are you questioning my driving skills?"

Elsa shrugged, still slumped against the window.  
"Your eyes were on the road, but your thoughts were somewhere else."

"Sorry. I should've paid more… attention…" the uneasy feelings flared up again, stronger than ever, and I sank back in my seat, wincing.

"Are you okay?" Elsa sat up straight, eyes turning worried. I stared at the raindrops on the window she'd been leaning against, watching them roll down.

Somewhere along the way, the drizzle had turned into rain.

"I'm good. The… the beach took a toll on me." I closed my eyes for a second, trying to stop my racing thoughts. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve this? If I could've avoided this by not forgetting everything two years ago, I would have seized that chance. But in hindsight, we would all have made a thousand decisions differently each day, until it all ends and we aren't happy either way.

"I can't help you with that," Elsa said softly. "I'd take your pain if I could, but I can't."

"I know. I wish I could've done some things in a different way, that's all. Little things. Big things, too. I could've left Nepenthe for what it was. Could've turned away from it and I wouldn't feel so shitty now."

"You don't know that."

Rain pattered against the windshield with force, drops of watering shattering on impact. I felt like my sanity had been shattered the same way.

"I can't always save you," Elsa said after a minute of silence, her voice comforting. "You're going to have to save yourself sometime."

I found the courage to open the door somewhere deep inside of me and stepped out of the car, into the rain. "I suppose that's true, huh?"

Elsa followed my example, stepped out into the rain too, and I locked my car. The smell of petrichor hung heavy in the cool November air, pressing down on us like heat on a hot day in summer. It felt almost unnatural.

"I'm going," Elsa said. "I'm getting soaked out here."

We stood in the parking lot, with the clouds up above pouring water as if we were standing at the bottom of a waterfall. I couldn't bring myself to move, and despite her words, Elsa Arens stayed still as a statue.

"Don't you want a drink?" I asked shakily, leaning on the hood of my car for support. It was all still raging inside of me: the recovered memory, the terrible uneasy feeling and the racing thoughts, my friend standing in the ocean and it wasn't okay. I felt dizzy and unstable on my feet and sick, and all I knew was, I didn't want to be alone.

"You never offer me a drink," Elsa said, slow and calm, sounding almost worried.

"Elsa, please, just stay with me a little longer. I don't want to be alone tonight."

Elsa grew even more silent than she had been before. We were both drenched in rainwater, and still neither of us moved.

I couldn't count my happiness when a small smile appeared on her face. "I'll be happy to stick around some more."

It was all I needed to hear to regain the use of my legs.

"I'm sorry," I said as we walked towards the apartment building. "That request must've sounded really weird to you."

Elsa shook her head, raked her hand through her bangs only to have it return soaked in water. "Not really. Is it because you've been watching _The Ring_?"

I stopped right in front of the staircase leading up to the floor I lived on. "What? No."

Elsa knew horror movies didn't scare me. She knew that, like she knew so many other little things about me. That's what I thought when I started climbing the stairs. Elsa knew, and she was fucking with me here.

"Not afraid of creepy ghost girls? Seriously? I know I am."

I opened the door to my apartment as we reached it, and we entered.

"Please. I don't give a single fuck about ghost girls, especially not ones from movies."

Elsa clicked her tongue. "Watch out tonight. You may have hurt the feelings of the ghost girl living in your apartment."

"There aren't any ghost girls here. All of them fucking ran when I moved in here. Guess they got scared of the mould gathering in my frying pan." I turned around to face Elsa with a triumphant expression on my face. "Which I've washed now, mind you. You asked me to do that twice, but hey, it's the thought that counts."

Elsa smiled, and it chased all the darkness in my mind away. I would do anything to see that smile everyday, I realised.

"That's quite an accomplishment, Mer."

"Even the shower's spotless right now. Well, that was always spotless, because I'm not a total fucking idiot, but, you know, it's clean. So if we want, we can take a shower, and that might be a good idea? We've kind of been standing in the rain for a good five minutes and we were also, like, doing weird stuff on that beach, so a shower would be a damn good plan."

The smile only grew wider at that. "'We'?"

I felt my face heat up to Saharan temperatures. "My god, that's not what I meant."

"Don't worry. It's kind of adorable when you're rambling like that." It sounded strangely flirty, and I didn't even mind. "I'll shower first, and you can make that drink you offered me, yeah?"

I nodded. "Coming right up, your majesty. I know that's all you're here for."

"You hurt me, Merida," came the exaggerated reply, and I chuckled to myself and made two cups of coffee.

It made me feel better, all of it. The coffee. Showering. Elsa sitting on the couch next to me, watching TV slumped on my couch without really paying attention to the show. It calmed me. All the fear and pain I'd had before had disappeared right into the shower drain, and my house was way cleaner than it had been a month and a half ago, and I wasn't alone but with the one person in the world I was comfortable with.

I could've stayed like that forever. Honestly.

I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment Elsa fell asleep. One minute she'd been alert as ever, the next she was asleep, half-snuggled against me. I didn't mind. Not at all. I enjoyed having her close more than anything.

"Elsa? Are you asleep?"

No reply came at first, but after a few seconds, she mumbled "…yes."

I smiled. "Liar." And I closed my eyes, wondering if there was something I didn't know yet. If we'd ever been more than friends. Would I have liked it, if that turned out to be case?

Yeah. I would.

I slept, and that beautiful night, I dreamt about a lost memory found again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Around six years ago, in a peaceful night like the one I just described, I got a call at two A.M. in the morning.

I'd never been much of a morning person. Or a night person, for that matter. But Elsa was, and sometimes she needed someone to talk to. Which was fine, with me at least. Everyone needs someone to talk to in their lives. Some people do that talking at reasonable hours, when the sun's been up for hours and you're eating late breakfast at 11 A.M. in the morning. Others call you at ungodly hours and somehow, you don't strangle them through the phone because you love this person, and you know they deserve your attention.

Elsa could call me out of bed 2000 times and I'd be okay with it.

"It's two in the morning," I mumbled into my phone as I picked it up, holding it to my ear without bothering to sit up.

"I woke you up, didn't I?" came her voice through the phone, sounding guilty like always. I could tell her I didn't mind waking up to talk a million times, and she still wouldn't believe me. Even if I said that if I didn't want to talk, I'd just leave my phone downstairs, Elsa wouldn't accept it. Or she'd tell me she'd accepted it, but I'd know she didn't mean it.

"Nope. You know I'm practically nocturnal."

Elsa laughed, not convinced.

"What happened?" I asked. Even if Elsa called at unacceptable hours, it was never to have a meaningless conversation. There was always something important she needed to discuss.

"Well, nothing happened yet," Elsa sighed. She paused. "The parent-teacher conferences are tomorrow."

My throat turned dry at that. "Shit. I should tell my parents." My father would wave it off as always to sit in front of a window and lament over the war, and my mother, my mother who worked full-time and had to raise four kids (more like, three kids), would have to take time out of her busy life to sit and pretend to listen to my teacher talk about my extremely average grades. It would take her ten minutes to take in all that information, and ten seconds to forget again.

"Go do that. It's, uh, very important that your… parents… show up."

I could already hear it in her voice as she said that. "Your parents aren't showing up, or are they?"

"Even if I told them to come hell or high water, they wouldn't listen."

"One day I'll beat some sense into those people for you. How long have they been doing this?"

"A few years." A short silence followed. "I feel like Mr. Kai isn't going to accept it anymore."

I stared up at the darkness of my ceiling, lit up by the blue light of my smartphone. "Mr. Kai's been nice before. He's your homeroom teacher, come on. You're one of his best students."

"He won't let me off easy this time." Elsa lowered her voice, imitating her teacher's. " 'Elsa, this isn't a game. You can't always show up at a parent-teacher conference by yourself.' It's not like he doesn't trust me when I tell him I'll relay the information he gives me to my parents. He thinks it's… not okay, or something. I don't know."

I wished I could've helped her out. Truly, I did. It was a prison with no escape; it was either facing Mr. Kai alone, or asking her parents to please, for the love of god, come talk to Mr. Kai. Both seemed impossible tasks.

"I don't know what to tell you," I said with honesty. "It's shit. That's all I can say, but it's worthless."

"You listened," Elsa told me through the phone, and I felt all nice and warm inside. "It's not worthless. It's good enough for me."

"You'll survive. Mr. Kai will be cool with you in the end. He always is."

"Yeah. I hope so too." Silence again. "I'll let you sleep now. It's late. Or early, depending on how you look at it."

"Don't feel sorry. I could talk to you for hours." I yawned. I had to admit I was tired.

She laughed, but it still didn't sound genuine, or happy, for that matter.

"What? It's what you do for people you love."

I could almost see her smiling face in front of me then, eyes shining a brilliant blue in the dark.

"Love you too."

She hung up the phone and I turned around in bed, ready to welcome sleep again. It took me soon enough, and the following morning, I realised two things: I hadn't slept so well in forever, and I loved Elsa Arens more than anything.


	5. Chapter 5: Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nightmare Merida's been having pushes her to confront Elsa with a thing or two, though Elsa isn't the only one she has a confrontation with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter yet! Enjoy!

I'd let her make me happy. I'd allowed her to make me feel safe. I'd allowed her a way to hurt me again. The realisation came over me on a peaceful morning, after a bad night of sleep and waking up with a foul mood. I'd almost forgotten that Elsa had something to do with the memories I lost, that she was, perhaps, the one responsible for my misery.

So that morning, I confronted her.

"I don't see why I still need to wait."

Elsa stared at me, confused, as she stepped into my apartment. "Yes, I'm fine. How are you?"

I grumbled. "Okay, maybe I should've greeted you. Don't go rubbing it into my face now."

Elsa grinned, taking her coat off. It was almost december, and the cold really started to bite outside. Sometimes it would snow already, watery flakes that would soon turn into thicker ones as the temperatures outside went lower and lower. And other times, if I got lucky, Elsa would be watching that snow with a smile, and that was enough to bring a smile to my face too.

Elsa loved the snow. I loved the snow. Or so I thought. I wondered if I loved the snow or if I merely loved Elsa. Could be both.

And yet, a part of me wanted to scream at her.

It was Elsa who made me clean my apartment and my life, who made sure I didn't skip meals like I used to, who would hug me if a hug was what I needed; and still, I had so many questions she refused to answer. I still didn't know what I'd been trying to forget and it bothered me more than anything.

"You might want to elaborate on your statement," Elsa said, her lovely voice snapping me out of my trance as we walked towards the living room. I took a deep breath.

"Please tell me what I tried to forget."

Elsa halted, blue eyes finding mine. I could see fear, clearly, but I didn't dare ask to know about that too. Asking what I did had been risky enough.

"I can't tell you."

Of course that would be the answer.

"Want coffee?" I asked, more irritated than I'd wanted to show.

"No." If humans could radiate cold, Elsa would be doing it. The single word she said cut more than the wind that had blown in when I'd held the door open for her. My attitude had not elicited warm feelings.

But I wanted answers, and I still hadn't gotten any. I wouldn't back down today.

"Why can't you tell me?" I heard myself ask, knowing it wasn't a good idea to continue like this, but also not caring.

"You know that," Elsa said, "your mind can't handle it. Are we done now?"

"That may have been the case at the start," I retorted, "but I've already recovered a lot of memories. The strain on my brain wouldn't be that much the way it is now. Am I wrong?"

Elsa didn't have an answer at first. I knew I had her then.

"You're not wrong. You could, theoretically, handle it."

"So tell me."

"No."

It was starting to piss me off, honestly. I knew Elsa Arens, yet I didn't know her at all. She was home, and a stranger, all at once. And to Elsa, I was important, that much I knew; she wouldn't have stuck around if she didn't care at all.

But still, said a voice in my head, she never came to see me when I needed her all those years ago. Elsa had abandoned me and I still didn't know why. Oh, I could've known now, and the only reason I didn't was because she refused to tell me. I wouldn't stand for that.

"What are you hiding?" I snapped. "You could tell me, but you don't. What's stopping you?"

Elsa looked at the ground, as if it was so much more interesting than any words I had to say. "Mer…"

I cut her off. "Don't 'Mer' me. Fucking hell, Elsa, I've spent almost two months with you now, and you practically live here at this point, but all of that didn't make me forget that you abandoned me once."

Elsa's eyes shot up within a second. "There was-"

"Urgent fucking business. You tell me that every single time, as if it's supposed to mean something to me."

"...I'm sorry."

"For what? Abandoning me? Refusing to tell me what I need to know? Being a stubborn idiot?"

"I'm sorry."

"Fuck, do you mean a word of what you're saying? Maybe I was trying to forget something horrible you did to me. Is that it? Are you so fucking ashamed of your actions you can't even tell me? How full of shit are you-"

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're fucking sorry! I get it!" I shouted, not caring if the neighbours would hear me. At least someone would listen to me then.

"I'll leave," Elsa said after a silence. "I can't tell you what you want to know. Take a day to relax and calm down, please. I don't want to bother you."

I wanted her to leave, I wanted to be alone, but I also wanted her to stay; even if she'd hurt me, being with the person I loved still beat being alone with my misery.

"No, stay."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand."

"I'm pissed at you," I said, "but I love you, so I'll put up with you and your shitty reasoning for now."

"You love me?"

A blush crept up my cheeks, so I turned away. "Yes. I'm going to make you coffee. You said you didn't want it, but if I'm not getting things my way, you aren't either."

My friend looked positively perplexed at my change of attitude, and if I were honest, I shared her confusion on the subject. She sat down in a chair at my kitchen table, glancing at me as if trying to make sure she wasn't breaking a rule by being here, and stayed silent.

Within minutes, the scent of coffee filled my kitchen and I hoped a drink would help me make sense of my thoughts and my mood.

"You have a right to be angry," Elsa said, more to the ceiling of my apartment than to me. "It must be insufferable not to know. There's nothing I can say to justify my silence."

I poured coffee into two cups, not facing her. "Then stop talking."

"Are you sure you want me here today?"

"Yeah."

"How can you say that?"

Two spoons of sugar in each cup. "Sending you away would be a guarantee you can't hurt me, but not having you around hurts me too. It's weird and conflicted. Your presence is conflicted."

I set the cups on the kitchen table with haste, cautiously, as to not to burn my fingers. "Careful, that's hot."

"Did you… put sugar in this?"

"I did."

"You know I don't drink my coffee with sugar."

"My personal revenge. I'm still waiting for answers here."

"I'm-"

"Don't say you're sorry," I told her, my voice a warning. "I don't want to hear it."

Elsa sighed. "What's up with your attitude today? You're confusing me as much as I must confuse you."

"After a better night of sleep, I'll let you make me happy again. You know you're good at that. I can't bring up the patience today, is all."

Elsa stirred her coffee, staring down at it as if she expected the sugar to poison her. "Sleepless night?"

"Nightmare," I said, bringing my coffee to my mouth, not caring if I burned my tongue. Pain would be a welcome distraction. "It's always the same one. It always makes me wonder about your intentions. Your reasons for leaving and your reasons for staying now."

This seemed to concern her. I could hear it in her voice. "You really do think I'm going to hurt you again."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you?"

"Yes." She said it without a doubt. "But not in the way you think."

"It's up to me, then," I stated inbetween sips of coffee, "to decide. Let you hurt me, or let me hurt myself by cutting you off."

Elsa nodded. "It's up to you, but I hope you'll make the right choice."

The coffee burned in my throat. The right choice? How could I possibly be trusted to know what was right? My brain told me to run. To not let Elsa Arens any closer than she was now, even if she did make me happier than I'd been in years. I wanted her to stay, and I wanted her to leave, same as at the start of our conversation. Same as it would be at the end of it, same as every other conversation in the past or future.

Was it wisdom or foolishness to choose with my heart instead?

"Stay with me," I told my best friend. "I'm going to be pissed if you're gone before I have my answers. If I'm gonna have to wait for you, I will."

"Thank you." Elsa stood up, walked to the sink and poured what was left of her coffee down the drain. "How can you stomach anything other than black coffee?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Could you tell me about your nightmare, then? Surely you know that."

I nodded, setting down my own empty cup. "Well, it started when I recovered that memory of Hans…"

~~~~~

We must've been fifteen, not much older than that. I remembered looking at Elsa then, and thinking, 'no one our age should look like that'.

I could tell she was pissed from the way she complained about the stench of deodorant in the girl's locker room at school, from how she didn't eat anything at lunch, from how she seemed to keep a distance from anyone, in both the physical and the mental sense. I especially noticed how her eyes turned dark whenever we passed Hans Westerguard, or when he made his presence known in class by arguing with our teachers at a high volume . It wasn't hard to figure out who the source of her trouble was. If it weren't her parents, it was Hans, always Hans.

"He's dating Anna," she said through gritted teeth when I asked her. "He shouldn't be within a ten mile radius of her."

"Dating?" I raised an eyebrow, having trouble believing what she said. I wished she'd complained about scents for longer, for that had been easier to deal with. "Anna's what, twelve?"

Whenever you asked, Elsa's sister would say 'almost thirteen', as if to say, 'look at me, I'm almost an adult'. Anna Arens was a child, desperately trying to find the affection her parents forgot to give. Not even her sister or her friends could fill that void in her heart.

Elsa nodded. "I see how it is, alright? You and I know Hans better than she does. He's a bastard. Shit, he sells fucking drugs for extra money to finance his alcohol consumption. He's had three girlfriends these past few months and he's broken all of them to pieces."

Anna Arens would be nothing but another name to him, another plaything on Hans' list of victims. A desperate girl looking for attention, and out of nowhere came a fifteen-year-old knight in shining armour, showering her with sweet words and chocolates and too many unmeant compliments. Elsa could see it, and I could see it, but Anna must've been looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses.

It was visibly eating Elsa alive. She was fidgety, didn't hear you when you spoke, stared at you with eyes that didn't see, the bags under them indicating a lack of sleep.

I wanted to help her, but I didn't know how. I never knew how.

"He can't get away with it," I growled. "We're not going to sit around while he hurts Anna, right?"

Anna was family to me as much as Elsa was. I loved both of them in different ways, but loving them I did all the same.

"Of course not," Elsa replied coolly, looking as if she couldn't wait for Hans' blood to fill the air. If she hadn't been as gentle a person I knew she was, I was sure she'd been capable of tearing Westerguard to pieces.

I knew I could do that if I tried.

When school was over that day and we were about to go home, I tapped Elsa on the shoulder as we left the building, pointing at Hans. He was standing at the gates, laughing at a joke his friend told him, his laughter ringing in my ears. He was still laughing and grinning after his friend left, when the throng of people thinned out, the students all leaving to go home.

With a smile on his face, he leaned against the gate, without seeing how both Elsa and I had stayed still, waiting until the world around us disappeared. When everyone left were us and a few kids still talking, Hans was on his second cigarette, watching the smoke as it rose up in the air.

Someone should've shoved that cigarette down his throat.

As quiet settled, Elsa walked towards him at the brisk pace she kept in the rare times someone angered her, and she didn't stop until she was right in front of her sister's older lover. Loyal as ever, I followed.

"Ah, girls. What brings you here?" Hans asked, flashing a smile that could've been kind if its owner hadn't been so wicked. There was a taunting in his eyes, a cruelty, a look that screamed 'I have it all, what are you going to do about it?'.

"I'm warning you to leave my sister alone," Elsa told him, her voice dangerously venomous. If Hans had had the courage to look her in the eyes, he would have dropped dead.

"Anna?" he asked. "Or was it the other girl I'm dating? What's her name again, do you know-"

"That's what I mean," Elsa cut him off, "you're getting her hopes up, but all you're going to do is break her heart."

Hans shrugged. "So what? She's another stupid little girl like the rest of them. She's basically asking for it." He flashed another smile, and the way he said the words was so nonchalant that even people who didn't share his views would nod along to his words. Westerguard had a way with people. He didn't like authority, but he was charismatic and well-liked. If he wasn't such an asshole, I could've liked him.

I didn't dare open my mouth to speak to him. Elsa had a certain calmness to her that I lacked; she could keep a conversation civil, but if it was me Hans had to deal with, he would already have been lying on the ground with all his teeth scattered around him and blood in his mouth.

How the hell could Elsa do it?

"Just stay away from Anna," Elsa said, placing a hand on my shoulder to keep me in place. I knew Hans' face was close to meeting my fists, and so did Elsa.

Hans laughed, like he'd done at his friends' joke. As if we were a joke to him. "Or you'll stop me? Take some Nepenthe and just forget, Arens. You don't have a right to tell me what to do."

Elsa glared daggers. "You're a bastard."

In an instant, the charming facade Hans wore disappeared, evaporating like rain in the sun. An angry scowl twisted his normally handsome features. "What did you call me?" he growled, like a feral animal ready to strike.

I didn't fail to notice how Elsa's grip on my shoulder loosened hesitantly. "A bastard," she repeated, defiant.

Hans grunted as his fist lunged forward, towards Elsa's face, but he never made it far. The second I saw his movement, I shot forward myself, grabbing his wrist and twisting it roughly.

Hans screamed, high and childish, when he heard the snapping sound.

He sank to his knees, clutching his painful wrist. Briefly, I wondered if he'd peed his pants. With a look of frantic panic on his face, he inspected his wrist, bent in a strange direction. "You broke my fucking wrist, you bitch!" he cried. The way he sat there slumped on the cold stones, all his bravado gone… it was pathetic.

"So what?" I had to do my best not to yell at him. "It's just another stupid little bone like the rest of them, and you were asking for it."

Elsa remained silent, eyes darting from me to the broken boy on the ground and back to me again. Between the two of us, she'd always been the one who always knew the right words to say. Not now.

"You're a goddamn psychopath!" Hans shouted, inching away from us.

"No," I said, "you're the goddamn psychopath. A predator preying on an innocent girl of twelve." I crouched down, so we were at the same level. "There are 206 bones in the human body. 205 more for me to break, if you don't leave Anna and us alone."

Hans nodded vigorously before scrambling up. "Go enjoy your weekend," I told him, but he fled without a word, clutching his arm close to him.

I turned to Elsa, not sure how to feel. "Are you okay?" I asked. That was the most important thing to me.

Elsa stared at Hans disappearing in the distance. "Holy fuck. I think he peed his pants."

"Could be." I shrugged. "I doubt he'll continue his business with Anna. If he does, there's hell to pay."

"Thank you." Elsa pulled me into a hug. "I shouldn't be encouraging violent behaviour here, but-"

"He tried to hit you first."

"He did." Elsa looked into my eyes, but still didn't let me go. I was glad. "Promise me one thing, though. Don't get into any conflicts with that guy again. I'd hate for you to get in trouble because of…"

'Because of me' was what she was going to say, but she never said it, knowing full well I'd only tell her Hans was to blame, not her.

"I'm kind of obliged to beat him up if he treats you like that again. Or Anna."

"Still, don't go seeking him out. He's not worth your time." She finally let go of me, and the world felt colder.

"Fine. I promise."

Three days later, when Hans came to class in the morning with his broken wrist all bandaged up, I heard him tell his friends he'd had an accident while cycling with his brothers. Anything better than admitting he'd lost a fight to a girl. I felt like telling them the truth, shouting that Hans Westerguard was a weak little bitch to everyone willing to listen, but I glanced at Elsa next to me, and the sad smile she gave me was enough to remember my promise. She told me Anna had cried when Hans had broken up with her over text, but that she'd been over their brief relationship a few hours later.

Hans Westerguard wasn't worth anybody's time in high school. He was worth my time in my memories.

Not long after remembering the incident of Hans' broken wrist, the nightmare started. The enemy I hadn't seen in years resurfaced, taking the revenge he didn't dare take in real life in my dreams. Out of every forgotten memory I'd recovered, the memory of Hans truly was a thorn in my side, lodged in deep enough to make me bleed.

In the nightmare, I would wake up to the reek of blood in the air. I'd sit, and look around in the dark, and find myself alone, blood staining my hands. I would go to a tap, for water to clean my hands, but however long I washed, the cursed stains remained, never leaving. The world around me would become colder, and the words 'fine, I promise' resounded loud enough to give me a headache, and the blood on my hands simply wouldn't wash away. The smell suffocated me as I stumbled through the dark.

It had to have been Hans' blood. Of course, it could be a coincidence, but all clues pointed to it. The words I heard were the words I'd said to Elsa after the incident, after all.

I'd hurt Hans after he wronged us, I thought. Or Elsa did. Both of us. My old theory of Elsa being something of an escaped murder convict came to me again every time I remembered the nightmare, but that theory went against everything I knew of her. All I knew was, there was blood on my hands, on Elsa's hands too if fate was cruel, and it belonged to Hans. I wondered if he was still alive.

I felt so conflicted about Elsa in those moments. It was hard for me to trust her, or myself, before I knew the whole story. Even the answers to my questions seemed only capable of creating more confusion.

I loved Elsa. She made me happy. It were the memories, the ones she possessed and I didn't, that I feared and hated, and her inability to take that fear and hate away from me made me wary of her.

I told Elsa about the nightmare. She nodded along, but I could see she knew where the nightmare came from.

"Did we kill Hans?" I asked, fearing the answer.

Elsa shook her head. "No."

"Anyone else who died because of one of us?" I asked, more as a joke than anything. The blood belonged to Hans; I'd convinced myself well enough.

"No."

But this time, there was just a hint of hesitation that made me doubt all I knew once again.


	6. Chapter 6: Books for the broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How long does it take to succesfully break someone?
> 
> Looks like we're about to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could've split this into 2 shorter chapters, but no. Enjoy your 5K words, guys.

"Where did you even find that?" I asked, stirring from my comfortable spot on the chair to see what Elsa held in her hands.

She shrugged and gave me that look that screamed: 'wouldn't you like to know?' in that way only she could achieve.

It was a book. Red, covered with golden roses that could've shone bright as actual gold if I hadn't neglected to take proper care of the tome. In fact, I had no recollection of owning any books; I'd never been much of a reader. The book had been collecting dust in some smelly corner of my apartment, I guessed, until Elsa dug it up.

"I didn't know you owned books," Elsa said, studying the covers with its wilted golden roses. "It looks pretty. Well, if you don't pay attention stains on the pages."

"I didn't know about that book either," I told her, not bothering to lie. "It looks like something my mother would own. Might've ended up with my stuff when I moved out."

Elsa flipped it open, searched through the pages, careful not to cut her fingers. "Property of Elinor, scribbled in the back. That's your mother's name, is it not?"

I nodded. "Guess I was right. Which book is it?"

Elsa glanced at the cover. "Fifty Shades of Grey."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Joking. It's Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet."

Of course it would be that damn tragedy. As if I hadn't had my fair share of tragedies already. Though my mind recovered, many memories remained lost. I could spend time with my best friend in the world, but she had terrible secrets I couldn't know about. Maybe I had terrible secrets I didn't know about too.

What a tragedy.

"Put that thing back where it came from," I said with a scoff. "I doubt it's worth the read."

"No. I'll read it." Elsa sat down on the couch cross-legged, the book in her lap. I never understood how she brought up the patience to read. Whenever I took up a book when I was younger, I would always be distracted by the sound of a TV, or the view from a window, or the smell of the Chinese takeout my mother would always buy us because she had too little time to cook her family a proper meal. Books simply didn't hold my attention like the world around me could; if I'd been trying to read a book, I would be up and walking to the fridge for an apple within minutes, and I'd ditch the book for another activity.

Elsa was different. She could sit down with a book and read, really read, seeing the words and stringing them together and comprehending the sentences, the story. Elsa could be quiet in the corner with a book for hours if no one got the notion to disturb her; she could block out those distracting voices and sounds and see nothing but the words on the pages and the story in her mind.

Suprisingly, I never envied that particular talent. Elsa could have her books and wits, I was fine with my athletic skills and my good grade in P.E. I didn't like books, but I liked Elsa, and that was enough.

If only I could read Elsa as easily as she read a book.

"Didn't we already read it in school years ago? Shakespeare's kind of required for an English class to teach."

Elsa gazed in the distance for a second, thinking, before answering: "We read MacBeth, not Romeo and Juliet."

I grimaced, remembering the story we'd covered in class years ago. Macbeth and his wife, with the blood she couldn't wash off her hands. I felt a connection.

I had no intention to sour the mood and start another argument, like the one we had a few days back when I allowed Elsa a look into my nightmare.

Instead, I said: "'We?' You read it."

Even when school tried to make me sit down with a book, I couldn't bring myself to read. I may have tried, once or twice, but I'd end up forgetting all about the required reading. I would ask Elsa for a quick summary a day before the test, and she always delivered. I did okay on those tests; Elsa had always been better at teaching me than the teachers, because I'd rather listen to her than those idiots who hated me for being 'disruptive'.

Elsa shrugged. "I read Macbeth then, and today I'll read this. If you want to talk, I'll just be sitting here with a book."

She opened the book on the first page and got lost in the words, as if that was the easiest thing in the world. I glanced at the leafless oak tree I could see from my window, standing gloomy against grey clouds. If it had been me with that book, that tragedy, I'd already have dropped it to study that tree more closely.

I could use the distraction. The sight of Elsa reading peacefully combined with her words brought back a memory, one that hit me harder than any of the others. I sat back and thought it over, my eyes focused on nothingness.

I hadn't been the only one who had used Nepenthe to forget troubling memories.

~~~~~

Four years ago, at most. I found myself standing in a kitchen. Not my own; the kitchen at my place wore the stains of previous dinners like a cloak on its counter, and gastronomic fumes lingered because of a lack of ventilation and filtering. Mom and Dad thought it was okay. I thought it caused a choking hazard.

No, this kitchen was big, with a countertop that almost seemed to glow black, spotless as it was. Or, in this case, spotless as it had been once. On that particular day, someone had managed to drop a glass jar of tomato sauce on it, effectively defiling the sterile kitchen in the Arens household.

"You don't happen to have bandaids here, do you?" Elsa asked her sister with a small voice, staring at the mess as if she saw it burning in front of her.

"Top drawer on the left," Anna, fourteen years old, answered in a voice equally small, never taking her eyes off of the tiny disaster.

"I mean… it's still edible," I tried, attempting to move the red goo into an empty lunchbox I found next to the microwave. "It might not be the best spaghetti we ever made, but it'll do."

Elsa rummaged through the drawer her sister had mentioned, searching for bandaids; she'd cut her hand on a piece of broken glass from the shattered jar, and tried her best not to bleed all over the kitchen floor. "I suppose I'll just… leave this kitchen like I'm supposed to when my hand's fixed."

Anna sighed, picking up shards and bringing them to the trashcan in the corner. "No offense, but please do. I don't want you to get hurt again."

Elsa fled back to the living room rather fast and I helped Anna with the rest of her dinner. Because their parents rarely spent time at home, Elsa and Anna had to make their own dinners. This task had been Anna's for a while now; Elsa had cooked at first, but she was a disaster in a kitchen, and when Anna was old enough, she'd taken over all duties concerning food and kitchens, in part to take something off of Elsa's workload, but also to save her own stomach. She'd gone as far as taking the liberty to ban Elsa from the kitchen, which my friend had no trouble accepting; as long as she was allowed to help washing the dishes.

Today, Elsa had stayed out of the kitchen dutifully while I helped Anna, but when the younger girl saw it fit to ask her sister to fetch a jar of tomato sauce for the spaghetti, it had ended up a mess.

While Anna added a finishing touch to the meal, I left the kitchen to find Elsa, who was sitting on the couch, reading a book after setting the table for us. "You okay?" I asked.

She studied the bandaids on her left hand. "It's fine."

"Don't start beating yourself up over it. No one's pissed at you."

A smile. "I won't."

Lies.

The rest of our dinner preparations continued without further troubles. When we sat down to eat a few minutes later, the mood cleared. The spaghetti tasted like it was supposed to, to Anna's relief, and when I made a well-timed joke about the incident earlier, even Elsa managed to laugh.

It was peaceful, eating with them. There was time for talking and laughing, and it was calm, pleasant even. The food had actual nutritional value and, I decided, I'd rather have eaten Anna's spaghetti off of the floor than spend another night eating McDonald's.

Dinner at home was chaos. My mother would try to stop my little brothers from smearing sauce all over their faces, my father would sit without seeming present at all, and I would chew my food in absolute silence, unless I managed to find something to argue about with my mother. Arguments like that were common and resulted in me being sent to eat up in my room, where I had all the time in the world to complain to myself about how the takeout tasted like wet cardboard.

My parents wouldn't miss me at the dinner table, and Elsa and Anna enjoyed having company in that big, empty house. I was welcome to eat with them every day if I wanted to, and every time I took up the invitation, I found myself thinking, 'does it get any better than this?'

This particular evening started out as pleasant as all others, with the right amount of fun and laughter, not overwhelming but still present. The world seemed so simple then, as we talked about everything and nothing, from homework to our cranky old neighbours. But never our home situations, no; we were aware of how messed up it all was at all times, a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, and dinner… dinner was like Nepenthe. It made us forget.

Many of the dinners we had left a pleasant aftertaste, both in the literal and the figurative sense. That didn't prove true for the dinner in the memory I'd retrieved.

When I was halfway through my spaghetti, fumbling with my fork to keep the pasta on it, we could hear a door creaking open. We fell silent and listened; someone had stumbled in and closed the door behind him.

Anna stared at Elsa and I with an alarmed look. Elsa whispered something that sounded like 'the door was locked', but she said it so softly I had to strain to hear it.

I'd expected a thief or a murderer, hoping to take advantage of three defenseless teenage girls alone in a house too big for them. It was someone else, though. In hindsight, I'd have preferred a thief or a murderer; at least I'd have been able to be useful then.

A man stepped into the living room, where we sat at the dinner table. He took off his coat, revealing an expensive, professional suit underneath. His shoes, polished black, had the same shine as the pre-tomato sauce countertop. His hair and moustache were strawberry-blond, bearing great resemblance to Anna's hair colour.

Despite never having seen him before, figuring out his identity was not rocket science. I wasn't blind.

Elsa tensed up next to me, keeping her eyes trained on the half-eaten spaghetti on her plate, completely silent. Anna gaped at the man with her mouth half-open, as if he'd materialized out of thin air like a ghost, a phantom of a past she remembered only now. "Dad?"

He nodded without a word. His green eyes, tired and dull, stared at his daughters and the unfamiliar redhead at his table, but he didn't ask a single question. No introductions, no greetings, not a sign of affection. Nothing but those green eyes, empty like trees in November.

He turned around, walked back to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, and mumbled an obligatory 'Evening'. His voice felt the same as his eyes: devoid of all emotion, belonging to a dead man. Anna still gazed at him, her eyes on his back as he paid no attention to us, and Elsa still refused to look at anything or anyone. I could feel the tension, sharp as the broken glass Elsa had cut herself on. I wondered how long it would take for one of us to break.

"You're home early. How are you, dad?" Anna tried, the first to break the long silence in an attempt to appease… and connect. I imagined what it was like for her; she was just a little girl, longing for affection from her parents. It took me no more than 10 seconds to figure out she wouldn't succeed in her endeavour, but I would not be the one to destroy her innocent hopes.

Mr. Arens grumbled a reply. I couldn't hear it, and I believe that went for Elsa and Anna too. It could be he hadn't even said any words; he didn't present himself as a talkative guy. I watched him reach for a paper towel, wiping the black countertop clean.

"Who spilled sauce here?" he asked, ignoring the question he himself had received. I didn't feel inclined to answer him and neither did my friends.

"We made spaghetti," Anna said, a small smile on her face. "Would you like some? We have more than enough. I'll get you a plate, here-" Anna stood up from her chair, all but rushing to the cupboard for an extra plate. Elsa looked up, watching her go.

Mr. Arens turned around. "No," he said, his eyes finding his youngest daughter's. "I have some work to finish up. I'll be in my office. When I'm done, I'd like to rest. Dinner won't be necessary."

It took all of my willpower to stay seated and refrain from punching him in the face. The anger I felt when Elsa and I confronted Hans was nothing compared to the rage swirling inside me now. But I couldn't take action. This wasn't a matter of stepping forward and breaking a wrist. Mr. Arens was the father of my closest friends, not some snotty brat at school. And yet he tried to break them just the same.

He deserved to burn.

"Oh." Anna slumped back to her seat, head hanging low. I could see that her eyes were wet, tears beginning to form. I wanted to comfort her, but before I could, I was disturbed by the sound of cutlery slamming down on a plate next to me.

Elsa had seen Anna's pain and stood up abruptly, a dangerous glint in her eyes. All the emotions Mr. Arens lacked were visible in her, and if I thought she'd been pissed at Hans, this was a hundred times worse.

"How dare you," she began, "how fucking dare you! Anna's trying to be nice to you even if you don't deserve it one bit, and what does she get in return?"

I contemplated stopping her when she walked up to her father, looking ready to flay him, but I knew I couldn't stop her now. I took Anna's hand and watched.

"Indifference," Elsa continued. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you can just walk in here without even greeting us, and you have the nerve to bitch about tomato sauce on your precious countertop? Well, guess what?" She held her left hand up, so he could see the bandaids she'd used to fix herself up. "I spilled the tomato sauce and this happened. But you don't care, do you? You haven't cared about a single thing we do for years."

"Elsa-"

"Oh, so you do remember my name? Good for you! Anna told me once that she barely remembers yours. Is that what you want for us? How shitty of a father are you?"

Mr. Arens stomped his foot, an emotion finally shining through his veil of tiredness: anger. "I won't be accused like this-"

"I don't care about whatever you have to say for yourself! You can fuck off back to your job, for all I care. We don't notice it when you're here anyway. You're not good for anything but giving us money and thinking that's enough. I'll tell you something: it's not."

I knew Elsa as someone who would eventually, after getting into an argument, back down and leave the issue be. It was hard to make her angry, I knew from experience. The Elsa I'd seen in the few times we'd actually been mad at eachother was nothing compared to the Elsa I could see before me now. This Elsa seemed to let go of all the pent-up rage and sadness she'd been keeping inside for 17 long years.

It was awful.

"You talk and you talk and you talk," Mr. Arens said, sounding almost menacing with his low, angry tone, "but I don't think you know what you're saying. I don't need to take orders from you-"

"Listen to me!" Elsa's voice finally seemed to break. "You don't have to be nice to me or pretend you care. I don't need you. But at least try to give a fuck about Anna, because no one deserves it more than she does. Please."

Mr. Arens had no immediate reply. "I'm doing my best."

"Your 'best' isn't good enough. It's worthless. Maybe you'd realise if you weren't so fucking blind. If you listened." Elsa turned around, her eyes finding mine. She wasn't okay.

"Don't look for me," she stated in a flat voice, and she stormed off, out of the front door and into the night.

Mr. Arens stood in the middle of his living room, dumbfounded. He blinked a few times, shook his head and made for the stairs, his plans unchanged. He would finish his work and rest, as if nothing unusual had happened at all. I wondered how he slept at night.

Anna was crying, and I promised her I'd stay the night, that we could wait for Elsa to return together. It would've been better if I'd stormed out after her and calmed her down, but it was too late. She was probably long gone by now, and all we could do was sit and wait.

It was as agonizing and draining as trying to read a book. Anna went to bed eventually, when the clock's hands neared midnight, and I stayed behind in the living room, trying to sleep for a bit on the couch, to no avail. With every passing minute, I worried about Elsa. Elsa was smart, yes, but in the state she was in, who could tell what she'd do out there, all alone in a sleeping town?

She'd be fine, I told myself repeatedly, as fine as she could be. It didn't ease my mind as well as I'd hoped.

~~~~

I perked up when I heard a door creaking open and someone stumbling inside, like the night before. At some point I did manage to fall into an uneasy sleep. At the moment of my awakening, it was a little before seven A.M.

Elsa was home.

Anna must've heard the commotion too, or it was some strange sibling radar she possessed, because she came dashing down the stairs at the speed of light, in a green nightgown and with a mop of messy bedhair. I sat up straighter, blinking the sleep out of my eyes, and we waited.

When Elsa finally appeared in the living room, she looked like she'd been through hell. Dark circles under her eyes, shoes covered in mud, and the cut on her hand had opened up again, bleeding through dirty bandaids. Elsa didn't seem to mind, but I did.

She didn't say anything, much like her father had done the previous night. She just stood there looking at us, present and absent at the same time, a lazy, almost unnatural smile creeping onto her face. I could tell something was… off.

"Are you okay?" I asked, not knowing what else to say. I always asked if she was okay, even if I knew the answer.

"Never better." The voice was off too, I noticed. It was like listening to a song you've known and loved forever, butchered by a remix that makes your ears bleed.

"What did you do?"

The smile only grew wider, as if I'd made a funny joke. I didn't see any fun in the situation at all.

"I don't know."

I narrowed my eyes. "You don't know?"

Elsa shook her head, looking too amused. "Not a fucking clue."

"Elsa, this isn't funny."

"It's not?" She laughed, the most inappropriate action she could've taken.

"Look, I understand yesterday was a mess. Your father's a jerk, but we need to know what you did."

"Father?" For every question I asked, I received no answer; only more questions. The look in my friend's eyes remained amused, but it darkened too, and all I could think was, 'what the hell did you do, this isn't who you are'.

"I don't have a father."

"Yes, you do." It was starting to piss me off. I made eye contact with Anna and saw worry on her face. I must've shown a similar expression. "What's gotten into you? You make us worry about you all night and now you show up acting like some weirdo from a horror movie."

A horror movie. That's what the conversation felt like.

And yet Elsa did nothing but stare at me as if she could see through me, that unnatural smile still on her face. "Say whatever you want. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about anyway." There was almost malice in those words. Malicious delight.

"If you're gonna be like that, get the fuck out of my sight," I said through gritted teeth, my anger finally spilling out. "Come see us when you can act like yourself again."

"Fine. I don't care." Elsa gave us a shrug and a grin, even worse than the smile, and disappeared up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

I felt Anna's eyes burying themselves in my side. "What was that?" She asked, shocked and worried, glancing up the stairs almost with fear.

"It wasn't okay."

It was a sunny morning on a saturday, so we didn't have school. One worry less, at least. "Want to play a game?" I asked, hoping it would take Anna's mind and my own off of Elsa's strange actions. I had the feeling the best we could do was for Elsa to come out of her room on her own accord.

Anna nodded. "Breakfast first," she said, and I found myself agreeing.

We ate some crackers, but they were bland and tasteless. The game of Monopoly, amusing as it was, didn't turn out as good a distraction as I'd hoped. My mind kept racing back to Elsa, who'd locked herself in her room like a caged animal. Anna laughed at the few jokes about capitalism I'd managed to make, but her heart wasn't into it and the noise felt hollow in my ears. Empty, like the unoccupied chair next to me.

A good two hours later, I heard stumbling coming from above. Someone was all but racing out of her room and straight into another. I wondered briefly if Mr. Arens was still on the first floor too, but it didn't take long for me to remember that he'd left for office around 5 o' clock in the morning. Anna, Elsa and I were the only ones left in the house.

"Should we check up on her?" Anna asked, looking up with uncertainty as she rolled the dice.

I nodded. "Yeah. You coming?"

The look on her face said enough. That hint of fear lingered.

"It's alright. Just wait for me here. I'll talk to her."

I left Anna alone with her hotel in Rome and ascended up the steps, almost afraid of what was to come.

I found Elsa in the bathroom, cleaning the sink and her shirt with a few wet paper towels while also trying to avoid smearing the blood on her left hand on any of the two places she was cleaning. She looked up when she saw me leaning against a doorpost, her face sad and even somewhat ashamed, but at least it was a normal face. Tired and paler than ever, but this Elsa was the one I'd known my whole life. "Oh. Hi."

"I don't know what to say," I began, because I just didn't know, the same way Elsa had claimed not to know.

Elsa cleaned the final remmants of what looked to be vomit from her shirt. "Then don't speak."

It didn't sound agressive. Tired and broken, but the earlier hints of malice had faded. I felt pity, but I also regained the wits to form words, and I had to demand an explanation. "What the hell are you doing now?"

Elsa smiled. Fake, like so often, but familiar, and so much better than the smile she'd worn a few hours ago. "I had to get it out of my system."

"What?"

"The drug. Nepenthe."

"Are you joking?"

I'd heard of that drug every now and then; hushed whispers in the back of a classroom, or the glimpse of _someone_ handing another person _something_ in that way that screamed 'hey, that's a drug deal'. It messed with your mind, I knew that much. While it brought temporary relief, erased all your painful and unwanted memories if only for a short time, the blessing it offered could turn into a curse as fast as a sunny day could change into one filled with rain. Some people took it almost religiously, addicted to the sweet taste of ignorance, and lost their minds in the process. I didn't even want to know what an overdose of the addictive temptation could do.

"Do you think it's worth joking about?"

"No," I said, "but neither was that weird shit you pulled on us earlier. Drugged or not, there are more effective ways to communicate. Two hours ago… that was just creepy."

Elsa scowled. "I'm sorry, if that's what you want to hear."

"Do you think that somehow makes all of this okay?"

"I'm not delusional. Of course it doesn't. So what? None of us has been okay in years."

"Taking drugs and forgetting everything doesn't solve any problems."

"It makes them more bearable."

"Don't."

Elsa blinked. "What?"

"Talk like this. It's disturbing."

"Perhaps. All I'm telling is the truth. Isn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"It is," I said, "but not like this."

"If the truth isn't to your liking, don't ask."

I clenched my hands into fists. Elsa stared at me with a piercing look, as if trying to will me away from my position at the doorpost. I wouldn't budge; I couldn't let her off so easily.

"The way you talk, it sounds like you don't remember that actions have consequences. Your actions were stupid, just plain fucking stupid, and now you're pissed because I'm trying to make you see consequences you wanted to ignore."

"Consequences." Elsa shoved past me rather roughly, though not in a way that hurt me physically. Only mentally. She walked back towards her bedroom and I followed. "You know what, Merida? I've lived an entire life minding consequences. It's a big clusterfuck of a puppetshow. One minute I'm doing this, next I'm doing that, and it's fine, isn't it? As long as I don't mess up and make sure I don't need to deal with those precious consequences you want to shove in my face."

She laughed and sat down on her bed. "And I step out of line one time, one single time in 17 shitty years, and the entire world goes insane. Well, let them. I'll show them that perfect little Elsa Arens can mess up as much as any other person."

Because Elsa tried so hard to perfect. Because life was awful to us, and so were the people in it, and hiding behind a mask of perfection seemed to make the world just a little better. And when the mask comes off, if only for a second, the world screams and cries out in disgust because it doesn't like what it sees.

I was the world that day, and it made me feel like a hypocrite. Because deep down, I was used to gentle, perfect Elsa Arens, and seeing the perfection crumble away shocked me too.

But I still had a point to make.

"What I've been trying to say… I'm worried," I said, wondering why it took me so long to find those simple words I should've started with. "That Nepenthe bullshit is tough. I don't want you to become addicted to it. I don't want you to get hurt."

Elsa nodded. "I won't do it again."

"Should I believe you?"

"Yes." She smiled, a little more genuine. "I have a terrible headache I'll be happy to avoid."

"I want you to promise me."

"Consider it done. You have my word."

A one-time thing. I could see in her eyes that she meant it.

"Anna was scared," I told her. "You made quite an entrance."

This seemed to get through to her more than anything else I'd said. I knew Elsa cared about me very much, but if I'd ever deliberately hurt Anna, she'd get rid of me as fast as a child discarding a broken toy.

"Anna."

"Your sister."

"She deserves an apology."

"I think so too."

"She deserves even more than that." Elsa stood up. "She deserves parents who care for her and a sister who doesn't run away from problems."

She tried to leave the room, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. When she turned to look at me, I said: "yesterday's incident aside, you've always done a better job at making sure Anna feels loved than your parents ever could. I know that, and so does your sister. Don't ever believe you're only a failure."

She smiled at me. The first real smile of the day. "Thank you."

We went downstairs together, to the living room, where Anna still sat with the Monopoly board in front of her. I wondered how long we'd been upstairs, because she'd already placed all the pieces back in their box and now sat counting the fake money as a way to relieve her boredom. When she saw Elsa, she looked rather sceptic.

Elsa herself looked so terribly lost I could almost feel it. She didn't know what to say at all. What could she say anyway? There were so many words to be spoken, but none of them meant anything.

I gave Anna a reluctant thumbs-up while Elsa stood there all puzzled, as a means to signal that it was okay, that her sister was fine for the most part.

"We need to talk," Elsa finally said, more to Anna than to me. She walked over to the couch, where the book she'd been reading yesterday still resided. She picked it up and said, "If you're ready to talk, I'll just be sitting here with a book. I won't go anywhere, promise." It gave Anna the time to process; the same went for Elsa.

They would figure it out. They always did.

Thinking it would be best to give them some privacy, I said my goodbyes to Anna as she went to place the board game back in the closet it belonged in. I said them to Elsa too, but I didn't think she heard, because she'd already gotten lost in her book.

The fact that she had the patience to do that, to sit reading peacefully in the calm before and after the storm, still amazed me. I could never do that.

I didn't know why people liked to read. No matter what I did, I just couldn't understand. There were very few reasons I could think of that would make me or anyone else read.

Books, I supposed, were a way to escape as good as any. A way to forget. It worked for Elsa; books were a good a substitute for Nepenthe. Maybe, in another world, another life, reading would've worked for me too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They'll get a break next chapter, promise. A moment of peace, before it all goes downhill.


	7. Chapter 7: If the world should end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merida tries to learn how ice skating works

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course I can have a song as the title of this chapter. You can't stop me.

November came and left me again, before I had time to fully register everything that happened. Like October's, November's days flew past without warning, and for me, they were over far too soon. Before Elsa stepped into my life again, every day passed in slowmotion; I did nothing, watched the metaphorical hands of the clock go around, until one day bled into the next and time faded into an endless haze of boredom, a void where nothing existed but my own self-pity.

But with Elsa, days that would otherwise pass me by in a blur became rollercoaster rides, whirling away like hurricanes. Not that our days were very active; most of them were quiet, filled with a restless kind of peace that stopped bothering me in time. I'd learned to live with the broken melancholy that had attached itself to us, haunted us like a ghost. And the phantoms of my past kept returning, allowing me to give colour to the monochrome pieces of a puzzle I'd been trying to solve for years. Piece by piece fell into place, forming a picture I could almost see in a clear light if I tried. But whenever I reached out to the last pieces, my final resolutions, the picture would vanish in smoke like the days I spent with Elsa, leaving nothing but phantoms.

I'd hoped to find my missing pieces in December, when the frost chilled me to the bone and icicles sharp enough to impale me hung from the roofs of many buildings in the city. It was the time of the year where the festivities of the holiday season really started to show; I couldn't go anywhere without hearing christmas songs, christmas markets filled the streets, and so many people decorated their houses with pretty lights, shining red and blue and golden in winter's darkest nights. I even let Elsa convince me to buy a christmas tree this year, and even though its ornaments were mismatched and old, it brought a sense of holiday cheer into my apartment that had been absent for a long time.

And yet, the holiday season doesn't last forever. With each passing day, I remembered that in time, we'd enter a new year and fall back into the somberness of january. Only bits and pieces of the earlier happiness would linger, but it would be a matter of time before those moments I enjoyed so much would be nothing but memories, easy to forget. It wasn't fair. I wanted December to stretch on and on forever, a NeverEnding story, and I wanted nothing but a little more time to finally be happy.

As I said, nothing lasts forever. An anxiety began to form in me, a fear that all I'd grown to love would be taken away once again and I'd be left with nothing. I managed to push the feeling away into the background every time, telling myself I had to worry about it later. But I made one promise to myself; even if it wouldn't last, I'd treasure my memories forever, the good and the bad.

"How far do we still need to walk?"

Elsa stopped and looked up at the sky, as if a voice would come out of the clouds to tell me the answer.

"Not far," she said after a pause. "I can already see the lake, over there in the distance."

I had to squint to see it through the thick layers of snow and the abundance of pine trees blocking my view, but she was right. I'd have estimated half a kilometre of walking, which was doable.

"We couldn't just have taken my car instead of walking?"

"No." Elsa had been walking in front of me, but she slowed, matching my pace. There was a smile on her face, but it felt off. Or perhaps it only seemed like it, for my brain felt like it had acquired frostbite somewhere along the way. "It's nicer to walk. The world's pretty in winter."

I couldn't disagree. The path we took that led to the lake went through a forest, painted white by the snow. It was quiet and peaceful, and it felt like home. It reminded me of Elsa, in a strange way.

"It's breathtaking, but that would also be the case if we were in a car, where it's warm. My ears are freezing off."

"Should've worn a hat then, instead of only gloves." She laughed.

I pulled a face. "Not fair. You're only wearing gloves too, and your coat is a lot thinner than mine."

"I told you, cold doesn't bother me."

"Whatever. I just thought you'd like more time to finish that stupid book you found. I know I've been keeping you busy."

"There's no need to hurry," she said, with that tone that never failed to calm me down, that tone that made the little bit of guilt I felt melt away like snow in sunlight. "I still have time. Besides, it's about time I taught you how to ice skate."

Ice skating. That's why we were going to the lake. I'd always wanted to learn how to ice skate. I hadn't tried it since I was five and fell on the ice face first. That piece of childhood trauma was insignificant compared to so many other things, but it succeeded in taking the fun out of ice skating for me.

It was only after I saw Elsa do it, moving on the ice with the grace of a professional, that I wanted to give it a try again. I'd asked her to teach me someday, which she would gladly do, but we never got around to it. That day, the one before Christmas day, she finally decided to take me to the lake to turn her promise into reality.

When we arrived at our destination, my feet were sore and my gloved hands were covered in frost, but it didn't matter anymore. I stared out over the lake, to the trees far on the other side, and wondered if I'd be able to make it that far. In all honesty: that wouldn't be the case.

"It seems like the place is all ours," Elsa said, placing the backpack that held our skates on the ground in the snow. I hoped it was waterproof.

"Probably because it's so cold."

"Perfect for ice skating," she said, coming closer. "That way the chances of the ice not being able to hold our weight slim."

I swallowed at the thought of the ice breaking under me, my lungs filling up with water so cold it could kill me. Elsa must have seen it, because she gave me a comforting smile as she took of her shoes and replaced them with ice skates. "Don't worry. I won't let you fall." She said it with amusement, but she meant it. I trusted her, even though she still hadn't answered the one question I'd been asking since it all started on that October afternoon. If I couldn't trust Elsa, I couldn't trust anyone.

I followed her example and put on the ice skates, wondering how the hell I was supposed to stand on those things. Elsa had already found her way to the ice and circled around for a bit, testing the limits and nodding in approval when she didn't sink through.

Staying on my feet as I tried to make my way to the ice was a task in itself. Keeping my balance was even harder because of my constant shivering in the cold, and all I could do was gawk at Elsa, who looked like she'd done nothing but ice skating all her life. She blended right in with the winter around us, and with that backdrop of snowy forest, illuminated by a few weak rays of sunlight, she looked more beautiful than ever before, especially when she smiled.

I tried to focus on her instead of my own clumsy movements to the ice, and when I made it, I slipped almost immediately. Elsa reacted with the speed of light, grabbing my hand and pulling me up before I could fall. I regained my balance with some effort and latched on to my friend, unwilling to try and stand alone. It was also a perfect excuse to be close to her, but there was no way I could voice that without ruining the moment.

"God, this is a nightmare," I said instead, as if it were a better option. "Not you, or the idea itself," I followed up immediately with a blush on my face, hoping Elsa hadn't taken my comment the wrong way. "I'm just… really bad at ice skating. Sorry."

"It's not a class. You can fuck up all you want. You don't have to skate perfectly. You know that, right?"

"But you do skate perfectly…"

"Because I've had more practice." She said it with a finality, so I couldn't get another self-deprecating comment out. "You'll do fine, okay? Just stay close to me."

Now that was an order I didn't mind following. I held onto her as she took us farther onto the lake, away from the safety of steady ground. I hoped I wouldn't cause us to fall, but Elsa's balance was impeccable, making up for my own lack of skill.

I had to suppress a yelp as we took an unexpected turn to the left.

"Relax," Elsa told me, drawing me even closer. "I got you. There's nothing to worry about today."

There really wasn't, was there? I was in a beautiful place with beautiful company, far away from the rest of the world. I had Elsa all to myself in a quiet winter wonderland, a place where time stood still and nothing could hurt us. Even the cold didn't bother me anymore; my brittle happiness, frozen in the moment, made me feel warm inside. It was almost too good to be true.

"If you spin me, I'll end you," I muttered.

"No, you wouldn't," Elsa said with the hint of a smile. "You couldn't do it if you tried."

We sailed across the ice, somehow not falling. I suppose I got used to the movement somewhere along the way, because my fear of falling almost disappeared.

"Do you think you can skate without my help now?"

I could, but I didn't want to. I just wanted to stay with her, only a few more minutes, or hours, or days. "Afraid not."

Elsa could always see right through me. Today would not be any different. "Then stay with me a little longer." I loved how she didn't even question my reasons or my little lie, not a single remark. In that moment, I even loved the ice I'd always disliked for being cold and hurting me when I was five. But most of all, I loved Elsa. She always seemed to be at the core of my happiness, back in the past and right here in the present.

"Oh, I'd love to."

She laughed, and I laughed, and we were smiling so much it could set the world around us on fire. It was perfect. And yet, the anxiety I'd been carrying with me for a while crept up again, a cruel sing-song of 'good things never last'. I tried not to think about it much, to block the thought and lock it away somewhere I'd never find it again, but it stuck with me, latched onto me like a parasite. I wouldn't let it bring me down today, I told myself. I wanted to be happy, before the moment ended and I'd have nothing but a fragile memory to be treasured.

Maybe the anxiety was right. Maybe nothing good lasts forever. But if the world should end today, and this memory was the last I would ever make, I wouldn't mind. If it all came crashing down, if I wouldn't know anything ever again, at least I would be happy.

When the sky above started to darken and the wind started blowing stronger, a cold breeze sending snowflakes up in the air, Elsa decided it was enough. We had to be back in the city before nightfall, she said. There wouldn't be any lights on the forest trail and we wouldn't want to get lost. She was right, like so many other times.

I put my shoes back on in silence, a slight smile on my face, still dwelling on my earlier happiness. Elsa was watching me with a glassy stare, lost in a place I didn't know.

"Are you okay?" I asked, tying my shoelaces.

She closed her eyes briefly. "You look happy."

I frowned, stood up. "That's a good thing."

"I don't want to tell you." It took me unexpected; I had no idea what she was playing at.

"What do you mean?"

"You need to know what you tried to forget two years back. You need to know what urgent business was." Earlier, I would've jumped at that, filled to the brim with curiosity, but now the words just felt hollow and meaningless. Was it important, what I forgot? The way Elsa talked about it, I wondered if it was worth remembering.

It was what I'd been working toward, the one thing I'd wanted to know from the start. At first it excited me, but now I only felt fear.

And still I had to know.

"Please. I want to know."

Elsa shook her head. She looked like she wanted to hug me, but she didn't move."I know… it's just… I'm sorry in advance, okay?"

"Sorry for what?"

"So many things. The memory. I just hope it doesn't ruin the nice day we had today."

'I'm going to the hurt you again, but not in the way you think'. Words spoken weeks ago, resurfacing now. It did not bode well.

I gave her a humourless laugh. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that 'later' means 'never'. Might as well get over with it. Might as well make me rememember." I said all of that with feigned confidence. I feared I'd soon see the world crumble to pieces before me, and all I could do was pretend I wasn't scared to death of losing all I loved once again.

Elsa nodded and we started walking into the forest, its eerie quiet now pressing down on me. I longed for the peace of the past, for my earlier happiness, but it seemed I'd placed that out of reach. I shoved my hands into my pockets and waited.

"There's another reason I wanted to walk here today," Elsa said, a cloud forming in the cold when she exhaled. "It's the night before Christmas."

"The night before Christmas," I mumbled, tasting the words.

She turned to me, a sad look in her eyes. "But you already know the reason, don't you? It's hidden in your brain somewhere. All you need to do is drive it out.

"Drive… it out… drive…" I'd lost the ability to think. The world blurred, spinned, turned itself inside out and back again. I felt sick, wanted to run away from the memory that slowly came back to me. After years, I finally knew why. I'd discovered what I'd been trying to forget.

And all I could think was, 'please, just one more day.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, whatever could have happened to my sweet suffering children?


	8. Chapter 8: Lifeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merida remembers what she forgot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? It's the beginning of the end.

I spent every Christmas since I was only ten years old at Elsa's place.

Why not? Christmas with my family was nothing special. I had a few uncles and cousins I never interacted much with, but on the rare occasions they came by during the holidays, they only made me feel inferior and worthless. My brothers couldn't even keep quiet for a nanosecond, and my mother's holiday evenings consisted of glaring at me as I failed to show interest in the dish she'd cooked up; usually canned food, microwaved (Gordon Ramsay wouldn't approve), which didn't taste like anything… at all. I always hoped my father would say something about it, help me in trying to make my mother see how shitty her Christmas dinners were, but he never said a word. Sometimes I wondered if he still cared about anything at all.

Either way, spending the Christmas days at Elsa's place was far superior to staying home. Elsa liked having me around, and so did Anna, I hope, and their parents weren't there anyway. Even during the holidays, Mr. Arens and his wife still found a way to work. They rather enjoyed their jobs, I guess, or they were too afraid to face their daughters and deal with the consequences of their absence.

I suppose I should thank them for never being there, fucked up as that may be. I was more than happy to celebrate Christmas at the Arens' house, to fill the silence Elsa's parents left behind. I loved spending the holidays there; though the house was big and empty, its dark corners were easily lit up by candles, and Anna enjoyed putting effort into a Christmas dinner we'd enjoy, serving us with a big smile. She had more money for proper ingredients and more time to use them, so the food would have actual taste and I wasn't tempted to throw it all back up, like at home.

And yet, even though we'd have the time of our lives, I couldn't help but feel like a burden as the years passed. It felt wrong to spend so much time at Elsa's place, especially since she never came over to mine; I didn't like being home and my mother would sigh and roll her eyes if I brought friends over, so there wasn't much to show.

Truth be told, I might've been too ashamed of it all to even consider inviting Elsa over. It seemed we had opposite problems: she had everything she could want except for her shitty parents, while I had my shitty parents and very little else.

Nevertheless, it was all quite unfair, me always hanging out at her place. The Arens' house felt more like home than my own place ever did, and despite neither Elsa nor Anna minding my near-constant presence, I began to feel like I was an intruder, taking advantage of their generosity. I'd never cared much about that and I didn't know where it came from, because Elsa never said a word, but my insecurity and uneasiness began to grow over the years. I'd find myself sitting on a couch too fancy for me, in a house bigger than I could ever hope to have, and all I could think was: 'you don't belong here'.

I didn't dare tell Elsa about all of that emotional baggage; she'd tell me I was being ridiculous, that I wasn't a burden in the slightest, that I'd always be welcome to stay. And while a part of me was desperate to hear her say those words, I didn't deserve them, and they wouldn't ease my mind as much as I wanted them to. So I kept my mouth shut and ate food to good for me by the light of lamps that were never mine.

The Christmas in the memory I regained was different from all others before it. Too different. I didn't spend the night before Christmas at home, and I didn't spend it at Elsa's either. No, I spent it at a Christmas party I'd been invited to by a classmate.

It seemed ideal at first. If I went there, I wouldn't have to listen to the nagging voice in my head telling me I shouldn't always be hanging out at Elsa's place. I would do something on my own for once, see something new, step out of my comfort zone. Sure, maybe I loved spending the holidays with Elsa and her sister, but I couldn't be selfish all the time, not when my hosts were textbook definitions of selflessness. I thought it was time to get a taste of something else for a change, for their sake.

When I told Elsa about my plan to go to our classmate's party, she just smiled and nodded and asked me if I would still visit on Christmas day. Yeah, sure, of course I would. Still got her and Anna a present and all that mess. If she had any problems at all with my absence, she didn't show it. There wasn't the slightest hint of accusation or hurt in her voice and her eyes remained as cryptic as ever; cold and warm at the same time, secrets hidden behind irises made of ice. All of that only strengthened the idea that I was doing a good thing by staying away for a bit.

So on the night before Christmas, I walked all the way to the other side of town, to my classmate's home. I was hungry and cold, the snow on the sidewalks soaking through my worn-down shoes, but I didn't have much of a choice. I'd spent all of my money on Christmas presents: a book for Elsa, fancy chocolates for Anna, some toys for my brothers and an electric razor for my father, so he could finally shave his dirty beard properly for once. Even though I hadn't bothered to buy my mother anything, unable to see why I should give her a gift for always arguing with me, I still didn't have any money left to take a bus. I could've asked Elsa to give me a ride, of course, but that would mean depending on her again, which was exactly what I'd been trying to avoid.

No, I'd get to the party all by myself, even if it meant walking a few miles through a biting cold. When I arrived at my classmate's house, I felt half-frozen, so out of it I had a hard time registering the Christmas Classics Dubstep remix someone had decided to blast through the speakers at a volume so loud it was absurd. When the party's host, Jack, opened the door for me, he almost pulled me inside so he could close the door fast and block out the cold. "There are drinks on the table in the corner," was all he told me as I got rid of my winter coat. "Oughta warm you up. You look like you need it."

Seemed as good an idea as any. I walked further into reckless teenage christmas festivities, followed the scent of alcohol, and did exactly as he advised. Poured myself a glass of vodka strong enough to knock a small animal out, ignoring the biting taste of the alcohol. Warmed me up just right.

But later that night, I ended up feeling colder than ever.

It was around midnight and there could've been stars if the clouds hadn't been in the way. Well, I did see stars, if I allowed my eyes to lose focus and grow as hazy as my mind. When I looked up, I saw clouds as black as the night in sharp contrast with the snowflakes drifting down. It was good snow, solid flakes, the kind you could use to make a snowman. I found myself sitting in the snow on a sidewalk in a street I didn't know, my back against a streetlamp that flickered in the night, looking up at the sky as the occasional car passed by. The snowfall was starting to get heavier and there would be a snowstorm coming on soon; everyone was eager to get home. Everyone but me.

I couldn't bring myself to move. I was smiling. Why the hell was I smiling? Even though I was more drunk than I'd ever been before, I couldn't find a reason. If I stayed seated on the cold hard ground long enough, would my back freeze to the streetlight? Wouldn't that be funny? My drunk hands created a half-hearted snowball, and I watched it crumble away, snow slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass. And I was still smiling, with no clue as to what was so funny.

I felt so fucking cold. I don't remember exactly how long I sat there in the snow, turning more and more into a popsicle with each passing minute; in fact, the memory had always been foggy, only growing clear after I understood all that had happened on that fateful night better. My eardrums must've been frozen, because I didn't hear the soft crunch of footsteps in the snow, slowing down in front of me.

"I hope you weren't planning on staying there all night. You'll freeze to death if you do." The voice was gentle and there wasn't a sign of accusation, only concern. I knew that voice as well as my own, and I loved its sound more.

"Will I?" I asked, my words slurred. So obviously drunk. It was pathetic. I managed to tear my eyes away from the sky to look my lifeline in the eyes.

"Yes," Elsa said, "I'm pretty sure that's what happens when you stay outside with a snowstorm coming."

I laughed, with a little more reason now, though the dry remark shouldn't have been funny. It was messed up.

"You're not supposed to be here," I urged myself to say, voice barely louder than a whisper. Somewhere in the chaos of my mind, I remembered my promise to myself to leave Elsa alone tonight. My inability to keep it made me hate myself a little more.

"Guess I am," Elsa replied, kneeling down in front of me so our faces were at the same level. "You texted me, remember? You said you needed a ride home."

A part of me wanted to slap myself for doing the exact thing I said I wouldn't do. Another part told me I'd made the right decision; I definitely wouldn't be able to find my way home and if my own stupidity got me hospitalised, Elsa would murder me. If bringing me home would mean I'd get home safe, she'd be happy to sacrifice her night.

I muttered some curses under my breath. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Elsa stood up and held out her hand. "You're only a few blocks away from my house, so it wasn't hard to find you. Besides, Anna fell asleep halfway through A Christmas Carol." She smiled. "I believe she doesn't think Patrick Stewart makes a convincing Scrooge."

I really wasn't in a state to remember which actor starred in which movie, so I stayed quiet, took her hand and let her pull me to my feet. I felt a little shaky and weak, standing after staying in the same position for so long, and my skin was so cold it gave even Elsa shivers. I could only stare at the crisp white snow beneath my feet.

"Just lean on me if you need to," my friend said, and I reached the passenger's seat of her car with little help. Elsa had a car and a license while I didn't, so I'd been in that car quite a few times, but that night it felt different. That night it felt colder.

Elsa started the car and drove away through the snow, turning the windshield wipers on so she could see the road. I sat back into my seat and closed my eyes for a bit, trying to keep the nausea I'd begun to feel at bay. Elsa remained silent, realizing I didn't have many intelligent things to say at the moment.

"We're not going to your place," I said after a while. We were driving through streets that weren't near Elsa's house and even I could see it through my drunken delirium.

Elsa shook her head. "I'm bringing you home."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't want to go."

"Mer, you were freezing to death in the snow. It's better if you spend your night at home. With your family."

"They can't care about what they don't know. You're not going to tell them, are you?"

"No." A pause. "It's just better if you go home right now. You know, get some sleep and lose the hangover? You'll feel better in the morning."

Elsa wanted to bring me home because it was the only right thing to do. She didn't actually say so, but I knew that was the reason because I knew her so well. Maybe I couldn't read those icy eyes or the thoughts she didn't want anyone to see, but I could read every other tiny, insignificant action: the slight twitch of her mouth, the tapping on her steering wheel, the very controlled way in which she navigated her car through the oncoming storm.

Elsa never did anything she wasn't supposed to do, the only exception being the Nepenthe incident months ago. Aside from that awful slip-up, she kept up a careful wall of unfeeling perfection and control. Not because she wanted to, but she never hated it either, even if she told herself she did. Deep down, Elsa did the right thing because it was what she liked doing, because it made her feel a little better to know she did the best she could do. That night, the right thing to do was making sure I got home safe and sound.

I hated it. And yet I couldn't bring myself to hate her for it. I sank back further into my seat and sighed. We were very different people, Elsa and I. I didn't care much for doing the right thing. In fact, I often found pleasure in doing the wrong thing. It was me who got into fights far too easily, it was me who got drunk at a party and almost froze out in the cold. It was me who broke Hans Westerguard's wrist years before that, and though he deserved it, it hadn't been the right thing. The right thing would've been talking, diplomacy, reporting him to the authorities. What Elsa could've done.

But I didn't work like that. I broke the guy's wrist without batting an eyelash and I could've beat him bloody without a single thought of remorse. Did it matter if he deserved it? While my main motivation at that moment had been protecting Elsa, a part of me did what I did because it had been the wrong thing, and I fucking loved the wrong thing. There was nothing profound about it. Doing the wrong thing put me in a spotlight, drew all eyes to me, and even though it was negative attention, it was attention all the same. It enticed and repulsed me, and I'd have gotten addicted to it a long time ago if Elsa hadn't been there to rein me in when I needed her to. Because Elsa did the right thing.

We stopped in front of my house, tires screeching in the snow. Elsa turned the engine off and the car's life disappeared, leaving emptiness around me. I felt cold again, colder than I'd ever been before. I knew it was time for me to leave, to go home, but all I wanted was to stay in that car forever.

"I really don't want to go," I mumbled, trying to bury myself in the passenger's seat even more.

Elsa clicked her tongue and leaned on the steering wheel in front of her. "I've got all the time in the world, Mer. Sit there as long as long as you like and I'll stay here all night. But I'm not driving back before you're home, no matter what you do."

"Hm." An idea began to form in my messy brain, an idea that was either the best or the worst I'd ever had depending on the outcome. Under normal circumstances, I'd never have considered it. My drunken state was messing with my rationality, and Elsa was looking at me with that look she got when she was trying to convey that negotiating the issue wasn't an option. That look could be terrifying if her heart was into it, but I knew she didn't like being this harsh with me and the look turned into something I could only describe as adorable. It switched to a look of mild surprise as I leaned closer to her, but I don't remember how she looked when I pressed our lips together.

I'd wanted to kiss her for a few years now, but I'd never wanted to risk ruining our friendship. I loved Elsa more than anyone, and if I could only keep her close by being friends and nothing more, I would've done so. While I liked doing the wrong thing, it had never before crossed my mind to do anything that wasn't right with Elsa. That little bit of sanity I still clung to that night was already scolding me for being such a damn idiot, because it was so wrong, and yet it all felt strangely right.

Once again, I couldn't tell what Elsa felt. I did, however, remember how I myself felt when she didn't kiss me back. The ecstacy died away, replaced itself with a pang of disappointment mixed with a little bit of heartache.

When I pulled myself away, Elsa placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed me away very slowly, but the movement remained gentle, her fingers digging into my coat. I could only blink a few times, trying to process everything that happened.

"Mer," Elsa said, voice compassionate with the slightest hint of sadness. "You're still not driving home with me. I mean it."

I wanted the passenger's seat to absorb me, so I could disappear forever. I crossed my arms with a pout. "You don't love me," I slurred. From the way I said it, you wouldn't guess I was almost eighteen. It sounded childish, even to my own drunk ears.

"Don't say that. You know it's not true." Her expression softened and she pushed a few curls out of my face, with little effect. She'd described my hair as fire once. I loved it when she did that; it suited me well. But at the same time I hated it, because Elsa was ice, and when ice touches fire, it melts away and disappears forever. "It's just… you should be sober."

"You'd… kiss me if I was… sober?"

Elsa smiled at me. "Tomorrow's Christmas day. You're visiting, right?"

I nodded weakly, happy to finally find something familiar in this peculiar night.

"I got you a really nice present this year. Might be you're going to want to kiss me again when you find out what it is. Actually, I'm pretty sure of that."

I sat there staring at her, nodding along and processing, allowing my happiness to return to me while she kept talking with that soothing voice. I'd already heard everything I'd wanted to hear. Elsa loved me. She wanted to kiss me, but I had to be sober. Well, I'd be sober tomorrow, and I'd stay sober forever if it meant I could kiss her.

"So if you go home now, I'll let you try again tomorrow. Okay?" She finally let go of me, but not before planting a single kiss on my cheek that made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I laughed a broken laugh. "Why do you always need to do what's best for me? It's stupid." Always doing the right thing. I hated it, but I loved it too.

"Because you're worth it." She sighed. "But I do hope you're going to get out soon. As much as I like sitting here with you exchanging love confessions and stuff, I'll be sleeping all the way through Christmas day if we stay much longer."

I understood the hint and opened the car door, cold wind cutting into my skin. I shivered and rubbed my arms, longing for a fading warmth. The snow that had gathered in my hair had melted, only to be replaced by new flakes now. It was cold, so cold in that storm, and all of a sudden a terrible feeling crept up along with the chills on my spine.

I considered asking Elsa if she wanted to stay the night. It didn't mean anything with it; it was so she wouldn't have to drive home through the storm. We could wait until the weather calmed and go to her house in the morning. But I already knew what her answer would be. Anna was still home alone, Elsa would say, and if her younger sister woke up to find her gone without a word, she would get worried, especially with a snowstorm raging outside.

"Elsa?" I asked. I had to know before I could close the door.

"Yeah?"

"You'll drive safe, right?" I didn't like this storm, with its biting frost and cruel cold. A white Christmas could be beautiful, but it could be treacherous too.

Elsa's reply sounded almost offended. "I don't see why you're asking. Of course I will."

I shoved my hands into my pockets. "Please. Promise me."

She sighed, as if she thought I was overreacting. "Fine. I promise." The same words I'd said to her after breaking Hans' wrist. The same words that haunted my nightmares.

I knew Elsa wasn't one for breaking promises, so I believed her immediately. I nodded in approval, a tiny smile forming on my face. "See you tomorrow."

"Can't wait."

And I closed the door and watched her drive away, frozen in place like a fool. I watched the snow fall for a while after that, swirling in the wind, the colour white all around me, and I shivered, not for the first time that night.

It was so fucking cold.

I went inside, into a dark living room, grateful I wouldn't need to deal with a scolding from my mother. Took the stairs, stepped into my room and fell asleep, still feeling uncomfortably cold. And when I woke up in the morning, I remembered everything worth remembering about the night before, and decided I'd have a good day today.

It was my father who told me. My mother was still in bed, taking advantage of the holidays to get the extra sleep she needed, and my brothers were playing with their presents under our tiny Christmas tree. I found my father sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through the site of the local newspaper on his laptop, rubbing his prosthetic leg with a glassy look in his eyes. He motioned for me to take a seat because he wanted to ask slash tell me something, and I refused, because I was going someplace and he could very well tell me while I stood.

I didn't quite understand what he was telling me at first. So maybe there had been an unfortunate car accident last night, due to the storm and icy roads. So maybe there hadn't been any survivors. Okay. Fine. What did that have to do with me?

The article listed the victims' names. Three people dead. There were pictures, too, and I recognized the license plate of the wrecked car that had been fine earlier that night. I knew because I'd been sitting in it too.

So I took my father up on his offer and sat down at the kitchen table, surrounded by the shattered pieces of a broken promise, cursing all of my memories.


	9. Chapter 9: Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some words left to be said, conversations to be had. And wondering, a lot of wondering, about everything that happened, and everything that could've been.

If this had been a happy story, one of those fairy tales we all want to live, Elsa would tell me she was some kind of super-spy. Maybe she'd faked her death for a while, so the bad guys would lose sight of her, and she'd finally decided to return. In that ideal, sugar-sweet utopia, life would be simple. We'd do that lost Christmas over again, make something out of life. Get married, grow old, die from a heart attack or cancer in a year or sixty, like normal people. Not a spectacular thing to dream about, but it would've been enough.

We'd been living in a tragedy right from the start. I'd always known happy stories weren't meant for everybody, but I never thought we didn't deserve one. I always thought that, if I held on to the thought long enough, then maybe, just maybe, we'd someday be good enough for a happy ending. It hadn't done me any good, didn't get us anywhere at all, and that realisation stung more than a thousand mosquitos.

"You're dead," I heard myself say. There was nothing in those words, no emotion at all. No sadness, no anger, no misery. It was a simple statement, blank and clean, nothing attached. Empty. All I wanted was a frown, or a laugh paired with a 'don't be ridiculous', or a denial of any other kind.

But this wasn't a happy story, and all I got was, "You always knew that, even if you forgot."

Maybe I did. My subconscious had always known. Nepenthe doesn't erase, doesn't swallow memories up to digest them and wipe them out forever. Nepenthe buries memories, deeper and deeper, and the more you take, the more it takes from you in return. 'Buried' has never meant the same as 'gone'. When you bury something, or someone, it can always be retrieved in the strangest ways.

I thought that, if I could bury my memories deep enough, I'd be free of pain. I wouldn't have to deal with people telling me they were sorry, asking me if I was okay, because there wouldn't be anything left that made people feel sorry for me. If I could stop seeing her face every night before I sank into nightmares, if I could wash her blood from my hands, I would be okay. So I had to forget, thousands of meaningless memories, a whole life that had her in it for so many years. Down the drain, all of it, so I wouldn't hurt anymore.

"I killed you."

I did, didn't I? If I had just spent the night before Christmas at her place, or at home, or even if I stayed at that party until morning came, she would've been fine. If I hadn't asked her to bring me home in the middle of a fucking snowstorm, if I hadn't been so much of a burden, she'd be sitting with Anna now, drinking hot chocolate and watching some kind of miserable Christmas movie with less than 5 stars on IMDB. If I had stayed away like I'd meant to do that night, she would've been alive.

I knew all of that, knew it so well I wanted nothing more than to forget it, or it would be the death of me. So after the funeral, I took Nepenthe until all I still knew was my name. Problem solved. Sort of.

Were my parents happy with my situation, my memory loss? Of course not. Did I care? Of course not. My life, my memories, my loss. Did it matter what other people thought? They hadn't seen what I saw, hadn't felt what I felt. They had nothing to do with me, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I never wanted anything anymore, except maybe some goddamn peace and quiet.

"A snowstorm killed me." Elsa stood still in the last dying rays of sunlight, like a statue made of ice, close to melting away.

I hadn't realised I'd stopped walking while remembering. I felt dizzy and nauseous, and every step I took made my head hurt more than the last. All I could still hear was: 'Fine. I promise.' I wondered if I could see thick splotches of blood if I dared to look at my hands.

I didn't look. I started walking again, difficult as it may have been, hoping I wouldn't forget to breathe. Elsa followed, claiming her spot next to me.

"What are you?" I asked, almost inaudibly. My throat hurt when I tried to speak.

"What do you mean?"

What a stupid question. It sounded bizarre, even to me, and I'd felt like a fucking alien in the last few minutes. A stranger, watching familiar, unknown events take place from a distance, reading the last words of a sad story.

"Are you a ghost? Or just a figment of my imagination? A phantom of my past?"

I didn't know what kind of answer I wanted. All I wanted to know was when I'd lost my mind. Had I been living a hallucination, a beautiful lie, in the last couple of months? I may have wanted her to tell me I was crazy, absolutely fucking insane. It would have hurt less.

She had the audacity to shrug. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it does."

"Why?"

"I need to know if this is all in my head. I need to know if I've still got a little bit of sanity left."

Elsa sighed. "You always need to know everything, and at the same time you always want to forget everything. Make up your mind. So what if this is real? What if it isn't? I'm not even sure if I know the answer. The only thing I know is that you looked happy. Were you happy?"

I looked her in the eyes and remembered. I remembered a walk on the beach when it was drizzling and falling asleep together on the couch. I remembered passive-aggressively making her coffee with sugar because I was pissed, remembered her reading that stupid book. I remembered setting up a Christmas tree for the first time in years, and the feeling I'd had earlier that day, when she held me close while I tried to figure out how ice skating worked.

I turned my eyes to the ground. "I was."

"So it doesn't matter if this is reality or simply a reality your mind created. As long as it made you happy."

I couldn't help but smile a little. "I hate it when you're making sense without making sense."

It started to snow. No storm, no white flakes raging wildly around me; calm snow, peaceful snow, the kind you see in a snowglobe, covering a perfect reality, protected by a bubble made of glass. Untouchable.

Elsa laughed. Ghost, illusion, phantom, whatever. She was just Elsa to me. "I'm sorry that happens so often."

I remained silent, because somehow, I knew it wouldn't happen so often in the future. It wouldn't happen at all. Not anymore. Good things don't last forever.

"You're going to leave me alone, aren't you?"

'I'm going to hurt you again, but not in the way you think.' I'd had my time to be happy, and now I'd used it all up.

"I'm going to finish reading the book first. I've got some pages left."

I blinked a few times, because I remembered it now, like so many other things. "I bought you that book for Christmas. Because you liked MacBeth so much."

Tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. I was so done with everyone's tarnished silver linings, and most of all with my own.

Elsa nodded. "It's a nice book, but a little…"

"Tragic."

"Yeah."

My mother must've written her name in it, hoping the book wouldn't make me remember that way. Maybe she'd placed it with my stuff when I moved out. I hoped she'd done that.

We neared my apartment, trudging through cold, fresh snow, layers on the ground growing thicker as the flakes continued to fall. I was about to lose everything I had once again, but the world didn't care and time didn't freeze. Snow kept falling, clouds kept drifting over, and cars still passed me by in the city, eager to get home for Christmas, the same as two years ago. I shook a few snowflakes out of my hair, which was a futile effort, and I thought about the fact that it was so, so cold.

"Elsa?"

She turned to me, waiting for me to ask whatever I wanted.

"What did you get me for Christmas that year?"

Anna had tried to tell me, before the funeral, but I didn't want to know. I'd already made up my mind by then, and I didn't see the point in knowing if I would only forget. After losing my memories, I never spoke to Anna Arens again. My parents may have told her it was better for me not to remember, and Anna would be the best reminder I could get. She didn't seek me out, and I wondered if I'd even have recognized her if I saw her on the street. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. I moved out of that town as fast as I could.

"Remember how we said we'd go to France?"

I stood still in front of my apartment building, keys frozen somewhere in mid-air. "You didn't."

"I did." She smirked. "I guess my father felt sorry for me after my little outburst. He doubled the amount of money we got for Christmas that year. I still don't get why he thought that would make it all okay, but I decided it could definitely be used to buy tickets to France."

Elsa's parents had been at the funeral. They'd been crying. Why were they crying? They didn't have the right.They didn't care about her when she was alive, so why did they care when she was dead and in the ground? Maybe they had cared all along, in a stupid way only they understood. It didn't matter anymore. Elsa was gone and they were too late. Nobody could've helped her. It wasn't as simple as breaking a boy's wrist.

I opened the door, started up the steps. She followed behind me and I kept glancing backwards, to make sure she was still there. "Fucking hell. That could've been awesome."

'Could've'. 'Should've.' 'What if'. Every single one of my insignificant little actions, from deciding what show to watch to choosing what to eat for dinner, paved the way to a certain future. With every door I opened, I closed millions of other doors, all leading to different futures. I was doing that even now, with each backward glance and every movement of my feet. If I looked back far enough, at billions of closed doors, there would be one leading to a future in which we'd have gone to France. In which we could've been happy. But once I'd closed that door, knowingly or not, there never was a way back.

"I know. It would've made for a good time."

We were at the door of my apartment. Elsa's coat was too thin, and covered in tiny snowflakes all over, but it looked so right on her. She should've felt as cold me, should've been shivering, but cold didn't bother her anymore. I shifted my gaze to my front door with reluctance, hoping she wouldn't disappear if I tore my eyes away for a second.

I turned the key and opened the door. What kind of future did it hold for me? When I closed it behind Elsa, I knew I'd sealed yet another possibld future. No way back.

It was Elsa who turned on the lights of the Christmas tree, feeling more at home than I ever could. I wanted to do something, had to have something on my hands. I wanted to ask if I could get her coffee, this time without passive-aggressive sugar; I wanted to go back outside and wander through the snow with her until the end of time, and I wanted her to say something to me, anything at all. But I stood frozen in place, watching her move through my living room without saying a word.

"You're going to leave me alone."

The only words I could still get out. The obvious ones. A simple statement, again, and I knew I wasn't wrong.

The sad smile I got said enough. I didn't even need to listen to her answer. "I'm afraid that's true." It was dark, aside from the lights of our pathetic attempt at a Christmas tree, and I hoped she couldn't see the tears in my eyes.

I only remembered crying thrice in my life. I'd cried when I was six years old, because I got in a fight with a kid at school and ended up with a concussion that, at the time, felt like the worst pain I'd ever feel in my life. I'd cried when I was nine, when our family dog Angus had died peacefully in his sleep. Last but not least, I cried two years ago, after the funeral, when everything that had happened finally hit me so hard it could knock me unconscious. I was still crying when I got rid of all my memories, but by that time I was laughing too.

Completely fucking insane.

I didn't cry. I'd been through quite some fucked up things in life, but I didn't cry. It made people think I was strong. In fact, I couldn't cry if I tried. Whenever I'd watch a sad movie with Anna and Elsa in the past, Anna would be in tears halfway through, and Elsa would almost make it through the end unscathed, too composed to break down, but her eyes did get wet sometimes. Me? I didn't so much as blink. I stared at the screen with a blank face. Thought, 'oh, I'm feeling sorry for that guy', like everyone else, but it never struck a nerve. Emotion didn't impress me. Somewhere along the way, I'd taught myself that very few things were worth crying about, so I never cried.

I walked up to Elsa and pulled her into a hug. Cold, so cold, cold enough to freeze my tears right on my cheeks. Phantoms are never warm, but I could've stayed there forever, searching for a heartbeat I knew wasn't there. I never cried, but she made me do it twice.

"I can't believe, you're… goddamn it… you're leaving me alone, for Christmas. Again."

She made me do everything twice. She made me happy twice. She made me fall in love with her twice. She'd leave me all by myself twice.

"Just because I'm not going to be there, doesn't mean you're going to spend Christmas alone."

I looked at her with reddened eyes. I didn't care anymore. She was responsible for my breakdown and she could damn well accept it. "What do you mean?"

"Tell your family you remember," she told me. It wasn't a command, but it felt like more than just advice. "You could spend Christmas with them. Try to talk about the past, and… try to reconnect with them."

I scoffed. "As if it would get me anywhere."

"Like cleaning your house wouldn't get you anywhere. Like letting me help you wouldn't get you anywhere. You can at least try and you know that as well as I do."

As much as I loved Elsa, I'd never liked that. That feeling I got when she said something that I knew was right, while I didn't want to accept that. And still I would miss it, I thought to myself, pulling her closer. I hated it now, but I'd miss that godawful feeling as soon as I'd realise I'd never have it again.

"I'll see. It won't be fun at first," I muttered, my voice shaky and broken.

I felt more than heard her sigh. "Sorry. It's the happiest ending I can give you."

So stupid, all of it, from our worthless Christmas tree to Elsa's book, lying opened on the table. Tragedy. Elsa had read many books and I wondered how many had contained a happy ending, a happy ending we could have had if life had just been a little bit better.

"We deserved something better than this." I choked on a sob as I released her, feeling mostly pathetic and more tired than I'd been in years.

Elsa smiled at me. Even if the person in front of me was fake, nothing but a phantom my mind had conjured up, that smile was more real than any other I'd seen on her face. It was the most confusing smile she had, the one that almost made me wonder if it was a sad smile or a happy smile. Perhaps a little bit of both. That smile suited her well; Elsa was never happy without feeling sad too. "I know."

She wiped a few tears from my cheeks. "Like I said, I want to finish the book."

My christmas present. I turned to the book with a grimace. Star-crossed lovers. How fitting.

Elsa walked over to the couch and sat down, piercing blue eyes staring right through me. "Can I ask you one question?"

I motioned a yes, still shaky.

"Do you want to forget again?"

I wanted to. I wanted to forget so much it hurt. But it wouldn't get me anywhere. I was as unhappy without memories as I was with them. If I didn't have them, all of the progress I'd made in getting my life back on track would vanish and I would grow miserable again. At least now I had some fragile happiness kept safe in my mind, a reminder of when life was worse and better at the same time. There were so many things I wanted to forget, but also so many things I wanted to hold on to forever.

Maybe Elsa had done everything twice, but I wouldn't. I'd forgotten her once. I didn't want to do that again.

So I shook my head. "I've got some memories I really hate, but there's a lot of good stuff in my brain too. Memories in which I was happy. Some things worth remembering, and some people too."

I had to keep my memories close. I had to remember everything that happened, each tiny little detail, so one day, I could look back and try to smile. Even if there wasn't a happy ending left for me, I could try and cling to what little happiness I could still find.

Elsa picked up her book, flipped to the right page. "Good. It's not fun to be forgotten by people you love." No accusation. Never accusation. Just a reminder, something for me to remember.

"I love you," I said, unable to turn away. "But you're going to leave me alone all over again. It's not fair."

"It never is. But I promise you, I'll stay here tonight. At least until the book's finished." She frowned. "You look tired. You should get some sleep."

It would be over if I slept and we both knew it. But the memory had wrecked me, and so had the crying and I knew that if I stayed here much longer, I'd grow so tired I'd eventually collapse on the floor.

"You're really staying tonight, right?"

She nodded, and I had no words left to say. I turned around, to go and get ready for the night.

"Hey, Mer?"

I turned back, like I'd done on the stairs, to make sure she was still there. I was chasing after phantoms even now. "What?"

She gave me a final, tiny smile. "For what it's worth, I love you too."

She turned to her book, eyes skimming over words with a calm I never possessed. I stared at her a little longer while she was engrossed in her story, wondering how she did it and why it looked so right. She sat there as if it was where she'd always belonged, just another person in another imperfect life; reading a book under the soft lights of a christmas tree, disturbed by nothing but silence.

I turned my back and went to bed, holding on to that image. It was the exact way I wanted to remember her. It took me a while to actually fall asleep, and in spite of everything, I tried to tell myself it was all just a nightmare, that she'd still be there tomorrow. Asleep under the Christmas tree, book fallen to the floor. I'd seen her fall asleep while reading sometimes. I remembered that now.

But when I woke up the next morning, I found myself alone, left with nothing but my memories.


	10. Chapter 10: A small farewell from me to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merida writes a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always post the last two chapters in one go, in case you wanted to know.

__

_Okay. Hi._

_It feels weird to write a letter to a dead person. Actual words on paper, who does that these days? I read somewhere online that writing this might help, though. I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet, but this sounded like solid advice. It might give me some final closure, and you always did like to read. So consider this a small farewell from me to you, and let me tell you what life's been like after you left._

_I did what you told me to do. I called home to my parents, asked them if I could spend the holidays at home because there were some things I needed to discuss with them. They were surprised, of course, I could hear it in my mother's voice, but she said I was welcome. I hadn't expected it, I'd thought she'd tell me to stay away. I hadn't seen her in almost two years, so I thought she wouldn't see a reason for me to suddenly stop by._

_I went home for Christmas and New Years. Got there all safe and sound, because unlike some people, I know how to steer clear of snow storms. I told my parents I remembered everything, and before I knew it my mother was crying and I didn't understand why. It didn't make any sense to me, not at all. You would've understood just fine, but you know I've always been bad at reading, both books and people._

_We talked a lot. My brothers were happy to see me. They're older now, more independent, so my mother doesn't need t0 spend all her time on them anymore. Even my father seemed a little more present when we talked about the past. It was all pretty awkward, talking about so many problems and misunderstandings. There's still a lot of emotional baggage and old scars to work through, even now. It will be a long time before I'll be able to say I get along with my family just fine, but I didn't argue with my mother during the holidays, so I won't rule out possibilities just yet. At least my brothers liked my company, especially when I told them we could go wild with some fireworks on New Years eve. That was fun, I suppose, and the fireworks were pretty, though my father didn't seem to like them much._

_At some point, my mother pulled me aside to tell me she had a small Christmas present for me. It wasn't much, she said, but it was all she could give me, and she gave me your sister's address. Anna had given it to her when she moved out herself, just in case I'd remember someday and wanted to catch up._

_I went to see her. Of course I went to see her. She has a nice place in a quiet little town, and she's seeing a guy called Kristoff. I met him only once, but he was very nice to me. He seems a decent guy, not like Hans at all, and Anna seems happy, despite all the pain of the past. I talked to her a lot too, reminiscing, and like my mother, she began to cry. You seem to have a talent for making people cry these days, did you know?_

_Goddamn it._

_It was good, talking to your sister. Unlike me, she never forgot. She was a bit pissed at me at first, of course, because what I'd done was very, very stupid. She'd seen what Nepenthe did to you once, and it was terrible, and when I overdosed, it brought back the memory of that night your father came home early and you lashed out at him. I didn't dare ask how your parents are doing now; I got the feeling Anna didn't want to talk about them._

_She did, however, tell me where you're buried. Useful, because that was among the few things I hadn't remembered yet. When this letter's finished, I'll place it on your grave, even if there's no one left to read it. I don't know. Like I said, you did like to read. If you'd rather have had flowers, that's tough luck. If I'm not going to get things my way, you won't either. Ha. Remember? Sugar in your coffee. Ridiculous._

_Whatever. Maybe I'm just fucking insane, writing this. Writing letters without expecting an answer. Maybe this is all just a reminder. A way for me to make sure I won't forget._

_I don't know what's going to happen now. Maybe I need a goal to work towards, some kind of purpose to keep me going while I try to be alive. I think I might try to save up some money. I'd like to go to France. The Riviera. It would be nice to walk on a clean beach once, without dirty seawater, or drizzle falling from the sky. I could walk there and watch the sunset with a glass of expensive French wine. And I'll remember, everything, the good things and the bad, everything we could've been and everything we were. The happiest ending you could give me. I'd sit there on that stupid beach all night, until I fall asleep and I'm left with just another memory._

_Of course I miss you every day. Of course I wish you could be there. Like I said, we deserved something better. A happy ever after, like in those stupid books you used to read. I can pretend I didn't want that, but it would be just another lie. I suppose I'll take what's still in reach for me and try to make the best of it. At least I still have my memories._

_I guess what I've been trying to say is… I'll be okay. And you will be too. We'll be okay someday, you and I._

_Remember that._

_\- Mer_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, Phantoms is finished. Wow. I really loved writing this story, and I hoped you loved reading it too. I'll go and work on a new Merelsa project now, I guess. I've got two good ideas.
> 
> However, that's where you guys, the readers, get in. Like I said, two ideas I'll write, but one before the other; I won't write two stories at the same time.
> 
> So I'd like your opinion on what I should write first. One story is kind of weird, but it will also be pretty funny and very lighthearted compared to Phantoms. The other idea is dark. Really dark. Pretty heavy stuff, worse than Phantoms.
> 
> I'll write both stories, but I'd like to know what you guys would be most interested in seeing before I start working on working one idea out. So what's it going to be? A comedy, or a tragedy?
> 
> I hope you'll give me some feedback, and I wish you a very nice day. 'Till next time!


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